LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


PRINCETON.  N.  J. 
Presented  by 

cV\  e  CWrhor. 


Division 


n 


Section 


CHRISTIANITY  AND 
LIBERALISM 


By  J.'  GRESHAM  MACHEN,  D.D. 


Christianity  and  Liberalism 
The  Origin  of  Paul’s  Religion 


CHRISTIANITY 
AND  LIBERALISM 


BY 

J.  GRESHAM  MACHEN,  D.D. 

ASSISTANT  PROFESSOR  OF  NEW  TESTAMENT  LITERATURE  AND  EXEGESIS 
IN  PRINCETON  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


jReto  got* 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1923 


All  rights  reserved 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


Copyright,  1923, 

By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  printed.  Published  February,  1923. 


Press  of 

J.  J.  Little  &  Ives  Company 
New  York,  U.  S.  A. 


MY  MOTHER 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/christianitylibe00mach_0 


PREFACE 


On  November  3,  1921,  the  author  of  the  present  book 
delivered  before  the  Ruling  Elders’  Association  of  Chester 
Presbytery  an  address  which  was  subsequently  published 
in  The  Princeton  Theological  Review,  vol.  xx,  1922,  pp. 
93-117,  under  the  title  “Liberalism  or  Christianity.”  The 
interest  with  which  the  published  address  was  received 
has  encouraged  the  author  to  undertake  a  more  exten¬ 
sive  presentation  of  the  same  subject.  By  courtesy  of 
The  Princeton  Theological  Review ,  free  use  has  been  made 
of  the  address,  which  may  be  regarded  as  the  nucleus  of 
the  present  book.  Grateful  acknowledgment  is  also  due 
to  the  editor  of  The  Presbyterian  for  kind  permission  to 
use  various  brief  articles  which  were  published  in  that 
journal.  The  principal  divisions  of  the  subject  were 
originally  suggested  to  the  author  by  a  conversation 
which  he  held  in  1921  with  the  Rev.  Paul  Martin  of 
Princeton,  who  has  not,  however,  been  consulted  as  to  the 
method  of  treatment. 


V 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  Introduction .  1 

II  D  OCTRINE  ....  17 

III  God  and  Man . 54 

IV  The  Bible . 69 

V  Christ . 80 

VI  Salvation . 117 

VII  The  Church . 157 


Index 


181 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  LIBERALISM 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTION 

The  purpose  of  this  book  is  not  to  decide  the  religious 
issue  of  the  present  day,  but  merely  to  present  the  issue  as 
sharply  and  clearly  as  possible,  in  order  that  the  reader 
may  be  aided  in  deciding  it  for  himself.  Presenting  an 
issue  sharply  is  indeed  by  no  means  a  popular  business 
at  the  present  time;  there  are  many  who  prefer  to  fight 
their  intellectual  battles  in  what  Dr.  Francis  L.  Patton 
has  aptly  called  a  “condition  of  low  visibility. 55 1  Clear- 
cut  definition  of  terms  in  religious  matters,  bold  facing  of 
the  logical  implications  of  religious  views,  is  by  many  per¬ 
sons  regarded  as  an  impious  proceeding.  May  it  not 
discourage  contribution  to  mission  boards?  May  it  not 
hinder  the  progress  of  consolidation,  and  produce  a  poor 
showing  in  columns  of  Church  statistics?  But  with  such 
persons  we  cannot  possibly  bring  ourselves  to  agree. 
Light  may  seem  at  times  to  be  an  impertinent  intruder, 
but  it  is  always  beneficial  in  the  end.  The  type  of  religion 
which  rejoices  in  the  pious  sound  of  traditional  phrases, 
regardless  of  their  meanings,  or  shrinks  from  “contro¬ 
versial55  matters,  will  never  stand  amid  the  shocks  of  life. 
In  the  sphere  of  religion,  as  in  other  spheres,  the  things 

1  Francis  L.  Patton,  in  the  introduction  to  William  Hallock  John¬ 
son,  The  Christian  Faith  Under  Modern  Searchlights ,  [191G],  p.  7. 

1 


2  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

about  which  men  are  agreed  are  apt  to  be  the  things  that 
are  least  worth  holding ;  the  really  important  things  are 
the  things  about  which  men  will  fight. 

In  the  sphere  of  religion,  in  particular,  the  present  time 
is  a  time  of  conflict ;  the  great  redemptive  religion  which 
has  always  been  known  as  Christianity  is  battling  against 
a  totally  diverse  type  of  religious  belief,  which  is  only 
the  more  destructive  of  the  Christian  faith  because  it 
makes  use  of  traditional  Christian  terminology.  This 
modern  non-redemptive  religion  is  called  “modernism”  or 
“liberalism.”  Both  names  are  unsatisfactory;  the  latter, 
in  particular,  is  question-begging.  The  movement  desig¬ 
nated  as  “liberalism”  is,  regarded  as  “liberal”  only  by  its 
friends ;  to  its  opponents  it  seems  to  involve  a  narrow 
ignoring  of  many  relevant  facts.  And  indeed  the  move¬ 
ment  is  so  various  in  its  manifestations  that  one  may 
almost  despair  of  finding  any  common  name  which  will 
apply  to  all  its  forms.  But  manifold  as  are  the  forms  in 
which  the  movement  appears,  the  root  of  the  movement  is 
one ;  the  many  varieties  of  modern  liberal  religion  are 
rooted  in  naturalism — that  is,  in  the  denial  of  any 
entrance  of  the  creative  power  of  God  (as  distinguished 
from  the  ordinary  course  of  nature)  in  connection  with 
the  origin  of  Christianity.  The  word  “naturalism”  is 
here  used  in  a  sense  somewhat  different  from  its  philosoph¬ 
ical  meaning.  In  this  non-philosophical  sense  it  describes 
with  fair  accuracy  the  real  root  of  what  is  called,  by  what 
may  turn  out  to  be  a  degradation  of  an  originally  noble 
word,  “liberal”  religion. 

The  rise  of  this  modern  naturalistic  liberalism  has  not 
come  by  chance,  but  has  been  occasioned  by  important 
changes  which  have  recently  taken  place  in  the  conditions 
of  life.  The  past  one  hundred  years  have  witnessed  the 
beginning  of  a  new  era  in  human  history,  which  may  con- 


Introduction 


3 


ceivably  be  regretted,  but  certainly  cannot  be  ignored,  by 
the  most  obstinate  conservatism.  The  change  is  not 
something  that  lies  beneath  the  surface  and  might  be 
visible  only  to  the  discerning  eye ;  on  the  contrary  it 
forces  itself  upon  the  attention  of  the  plain  man  at  a 
hundred  points.  Modern  inventions  and  the  industrial¬ 
ism  that  has  been  built  upon  them  have  given  us  in  many 
respects  a  new  world  to  live  in ;  we  can  no  more  remove 
ourselves  from  that  world  than  we  can  escape  from  the 
atmosphere  that  we  breathe. 

But  such  changes  in  the  material  conditions  of  life  do 
not  stand  alone;  they  have  been  produced  by  mighty 
changes  in  the  human  mind,  as  in  their  turn  they  them¬ 
selves  give  rise  to  further  spiritual  changes.  The  indus¬ 
trial  world  of  to-day  has  been  produced  not  by  blind 
forces  of  nature  but  by  the  conscious  activity  of  the 
human  spirit ;  it  has  been  produced  by  the  achievements 
of  science.  The  outstanding  feature  of  recent  history  is 
an  enormous  widening  of  human  knowledge,  which  has 
gone  hand  in  hand  with  such  perfecting  of  the  instrument 
of  investigation  that  scarcely  any  limits  can  be  assigned 
to  future  progress  in  the  material  realm. 

The  application  of  modern  scientific  methods  is  almost 
as  broad  as  the  universe  in  which  we  live.  Though  the 
most  palpable  achievements  are  in  the  sphere  of  physics 
and  chemistry,  the  sphere  of  human  life  cannot  be  isolated 
from  the  rest,  and  with  the  other  sciences  there  has  ap¬ 
peared,  for  example,  a  modern  science  of  history,  which, 
with  psychology  and  sociology  and  the  like,  claims,  even 
if  it  does  not  deserve,  full  equality  with  its  sister  sciences. 
No  department  of  knowledge  can  maintain  its  isolation 
from  the  modern  lust  of  scientific  conquest ;  treaties  of 
inviolability,  though  hallowed  by  all  the  sanctions  of  age¬ 
long  tradition,  are  being  flung  ruthlessly  to  the  winds. 


4  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

In  such  an  age,  it  is  obvious  that  every  inheritance 
from  the  past  must  be  subject  to  searching  criticism;  and 
as  a  matter  of  fact  some  convictions  of  the  human  race 
have  crumbled  to  pieces  in  the  test.  Indeed,  dependence 
of  any  institution  upon  the  past  is  now  sometimes  even 
regarded  as  furnishing  a  presumption,  not  in  favor  of  it, 
but  against  it.  So  many  convictions  have  had  to  be  aban¬ 
doned  that  men  have  sometimes  come  to  believe  that  all 
convictions  must  go. 

If  such  an  attitude  be  justifiable,  then  no  institution  is 
faced  by  a  stronger  hostile  presumption  than  the  institu¬ 
tion  of  the  Christian  religion,  for  no  institution  has  based 
itself  more  squarely  upon  the  authority  of  a  by-gone  age. 
We  are  not  now  inquiring  whether  such  policy  is  wise  or 
historically  justifiable;  in  any  case  the  fact  itself  is  plain, 
that  Christianity  during  many  centuries  has  consistently 
appealed  for  the  truth  of  its  claims,  not  merely  and  not 
even  primarily  to  current  experience,  but  to  certain  an¬ 
cient  books  the  most  recent  of  which  was  written  some 
nineteen  hundred  years  ago.  It  is  no  wonder  that  that 
appeal  is  being  criticized  to-day;  for  the  writers  of  the 
books  in  question  were  no  doubt  men  of  their  own  age, 
whose  outlook  upon  the  material  world,  judged  by  mod¬ 
ern  standards,  must  have  been  of  the  crudest  and  most 
elementary  kind.  Inevitably  the  question  arises  whether 
the  opinions  of  such  men  can  ever  be  normative  for  men 
of  the  present  day;  in  other  words,  whether  first-century 
religion  can  ever  stand  in  company  with  twentieth-century 
science. 

However  the  question  may  be  answered,  it  presents  a 
serious  problem  to  the  modern  Church.  Attempts  are 
indeed  sometimes  made  to  make  the  answer  easier  than  at 
first  sight  it  appears  to  be.  Religion,  it  is  said,  is  so 
entirely  separate  from  science,  that  the  two,  rightly  de- 


Introduction 


5 


fined,  cannot  possibly  come  into  conflict.  This  attempt  at 
separation,  as  it  is  hoped  the  following  pages  may  show, 
is  open  to  objections  of  the  most  serious  kind.  But  what 
must  now  be  observed  is  that  even  if  the  separation  is 
justifiable  it  cannot  be  effected  without  effort;  the  re¬ 
moval  of  the  problem  of  religion  and  science  itself  consti¬ 
tutes  a  problem.  For,  rightly  or  wrongly,  religion  during 
the  centuries  has  as  a  matter  of  fact  connected  itself  with 
a  host  of  convictions,  especially  in  the  sphere  of  history, 
which  may  form  the  subject  of  scientific  investigation; 
just  as  scientific  investigators,  on  the  other  hand,  have 
sometimes  attached  themselves,  again  rightly  or  wrongly, 
to  conclusions  which  impinge  upon  the  innermost  domain 
of  philosophy  and  of  religion.  For  example,  if  any  simple 
Christian  of  one  hundred  years  ago,  or  even  of  to-day, 
were  asked  what  would  become  of  his  religion  if  history 
should  prove  indubitably  that  no  man  called  Jesus  ever 
lived  and  died  in  the  first  century  of  our  era,  he  would 
undoubtedly  answer  that  his  religion  would  fall  away. 
Yet  the  investigation  of  events  in  the  first  century  in 
Judaea,  just  as  much  as  in  Italy  or  in  Greece,  belongs 
to  the  sphere  of  scientific  history.  In  other  words,  our 
simple  Christian,  whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  whether 
wisely  or  unwisely,  has  as  a  matter  of  fact  connected  his 
religion,  in  a  way  that  to  him  seems  indissoluble,  with 
convictions  about  which  science  also  has  a  right  to  speak. 
If,  then,  those  convictions,  ostensibly  religious,  which  be¬ 
long  to  the  sphere  of  science,  are  not  really  religious  at 
all,  the  demonstration  of  that  fact  is  itself  no  trifling 
task.  Even  if  the  problem  of  science  and  religion  reduces 
itself  to  the  problem  of  disentangling  religion  from 
pseudo-scientific  accretions,  the  seriousness  of  the  prob¬ 
lem  is  not  thereby  diminished.  From  every  point  of  view, 
therefore,  the  problem  in  question  is  the  most  serious  con- 


6  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

cern  of  the  Church.  What  is  the  relation  between  Chris¬ 
tianity  and  modern  culture;  may  Christianity  be  main¬ 
tained  in  a  scientific  age? 

It  is  this  problem  which  modern  liberalism  attempts  to 
solve.  Admitting  that  scientific  objections  may  arise 
against  the  particularities  of  the  Christian  religion — 
against  the  Christian  doctrines  of  the  person  of  Christ, 
and  of  redemption  through  His  death  and  resurrection 
— the  liberal  theologian  seeks  to  rescue  certain  of  the 
general  principles  of  religion,  of  which  these  particulari¬ 
ties  are  thought  to  be  mere  temporary  symbols,  and  these 
general  principles  he  regards  as  constituting  “the  essence 
of  Christianity.” 

It  may  well  be  questioned,  however,  whether  this  method 
of  defence  will  really  prove  to  be  efficacious ;  for  after  the 
apologist  has  abandoned  his  outer  defences  to  the  enemy 
and  withdrawn  into  some  inner  citadel,  he  will  probably 
discover  that  the  enemy  pursues  him  even  there.  Modern 
materialism,  especially  in  the  realm  of  psychology,  is  not 
content  with  occupying  the  lower  quarters  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  city,  but  pushes  its  way  into  all  the  higher  reaches  of 
life;  it  is  just  as  much  opposed  to  the  philosophical  ideal¬ 
ism  of  the  liberal  preacher  as  to  the  Biblical  doctrines  that 
the  liberal  preacher  has  abandoned  in  the  interests  of 
peace.  Mere  concessiveness,  therefore,  will  never  succeed 
in  avoiding  the  intellectual  conflict.  In  the  intellectual 
battle  of  the  present  day  there  can  be  no  “peace  without 
victory” ;  one  side  or  the  other  must  win. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  it  may  appear  that  the 
figure  which  has  just  been  used  is  altogether  misleading; 
it  may  appear  that  what  the  liberal  theologian  has  re¬ 
tained  after  abandoning  to  the  enemy  one  Christian  doc¬ 
trine  after  another  is  not  Christianity  at  all,  but  a  religion 
which  is  so  entirely  different  from  Christianity  as  to  be- 


Introduction 


7 


long  in  a  distinct  category.  It  may  appear  further  that 
the  fears  of  the  modern  man  as  to  Christianity  were 
entirely  ungrounded,  and  that  in  abandoning  the  embat¬ 
tled  walls  of  the  city  of  God  he  has  fled  in  needless  panic 
into  the  open  plains  of  a  vague  natural  religion  only  to 
fall  an  easy  victim  to  the  enemy  who  ever  lies  in  ambush 
there. 

Two  lines  of  criticism,  then,  are  possible  with  respect 
to  the  liberal  attempt  at  reconciling  science  and  Chris¬ 
tianity.  Modern  liberalism  may  be  criticized  (1)  on  the 
ground  that  it  is  un-Christian  and  (2)  on  the  ground  that 
it  is  unscientific.  We  shall  concern  ourselves  here  chiefly 
with  the  former  line  of  criticism ;  we  shall  be  interested  in 
showing  that  despite  the  liberal  use  of  traditional  phrase¬ 
ology  modern  liberalism  not  only  is  a  different  religion 
from  Christianity  but  belongs  in  a  totally  different  class 
of  religions.  But  in  showing  that  the  liberal  attempt  at 
rescuing  Christianity  is  false  we  are  not  showing  that 
there  is  no  way  of  rescuing  Christianity  at  all ;  on  the 
contrary,  it  may  appear  incidentally,  even  in  the  present 
little  book,  that  it  is  not  the  Christianity  of  the  New 
Testament  which  is  in  conflict  with  science,  but  the  sup¬ 
posed  Christianity  of  the  modern  liberal  Church,  and 
that  the  real  city  of  God,  and  that  city  alone,  has  de¬ 
fences  which  are  capable  of  warding  off  the  assaults  of 
modern  unbelief.  However,  our  immediate  concern  is  with 
the  other  side  of  the  problem;  our  principal  concern  just 
now  is  to  show  that  the  liberal  attempt  at  reconciling 
Christianity  with  modern  science  has  really  relinquished 
everything  distinctive  of  Christianity,  so  that  what  re¬ 
mains  is  in  essentials  only  that  same  indefinite  type  of 
religious  aspiration  which  was  in  the  world  before  Chris¬ 
tianity  came  upon  the  scene.  In  trying  to  remove  from 
Christianity  everything  that  could  possibly  be  objected  to 


8 


Christianity  and  Liberalism 

in  the  name  of  science,  in  trying  to  bribe  off  the  enemy  by 
those  concessions  which  the  enemy  most  desires,  the  apol¬ 
ogist  has  really  abandoned  what  he  started  out  to  defend. 
Here  as  in  many  other  departments  of  life  it  appears  that 
the  things  that  are  sometimes  thought  to  be  hardest  to 
defend  are  also  the  things  that  are  most  worth  defending. 

In  maintaining  that  liberalism  in  the  modern  Church 
represents  a  return  to  an  un-Christian  and  sub-Christian 
form  of  the  religious  life,  we  are  particularly  anxious  not 
to  be  misunderstood.  “Un-Christian”  in  such  a  connec¬ 
tion  is  sometimes  taken  as  a  term  of  opprobrium.  We  do 
not  mean  it  at  all  as  such.  Socrates  was  not  a  Christian, 
neither  was  Goethe;  yet  we  share  to  the  full  the  respect 
with  which  their  names  are  regarded.  They  tower  im¬ 
measurably  above  the  common  run  of  men;  if  he  that  is 
least  in  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  greater  than  they,  he  is 
certainly  greater  not  by  any  inherent  superiority,  but  by 
virtue  of  an  undeserved  privilege  which  ought  to  make  him 
humble  rather  than  contemptuous. 

Such  considerations,  however,  should  not  be  allowed  to 
obscure  the  vital  importance  of  the  question  at  issue.  If 
a  condition  could  be  conceived  in  which  all  the  preaching 
of  the  Church  should  be  controlled  by  the  liberalism  which 
in  many  quarters  has  already  become  preponderant,  then, 
we  believe,  Christianity  would  at  last  have  perished  from 
the  earth  and  the  gospel  would  have  sounded  forth  for  the 
last  time.  If  so,  it  follows  that  the  inquiry  with  which  we 
are  now  concerned  is  immeasurably  the  most  important  of 
all  those  with  which  the  Church  has  to  deal.  Vastly  more 
important  than  all  questions  with  regard  to  methods  of 
preaching  is  the  root  question  as  to  what  it  is  that  shall 
be  preached. 

Many,  no  doubt,  will  turn  in  impatience  from  the  in¬ 
quiry — all  those,  namely,  who  have  settled  the  question  in 


Introduction 


9 


such  a  way  that  they  cannot  even  conceive  of  its  being 
reopened.  Such,  for  example,  are  the  pietists,  of  whom 
there  are  still  many.  “What,”  they  say,  “is  the  need  of 
argument  in  defence  of  the  Bible?  Is  it  not  the  Word  of 
God,  and  does  it  not  carry  with  it  an  immediate  certitude 
of  its  truth  which  could  only  be  obscured  by  defence?  If 
science  comes  into  contradiction  with  the  Bible  so  much 
the  worse  for  science!”  For  these  persons  we  have  the 
highest  respect,  for  we  believe  that  they  are  right  in  the 
main  point ;  they  have  arrived  by  a  direct  and  easy  road 
at  a  conviction  which  for  other  men  is  attained  only 
through  intellectual  struggle.  But  we  cannot  reasonably 
expect  them  to  be  interested  in  what  we  have  to  say. 

Another  class  of  uninterested  persons  is  much  more 
numerous.  It  consists  of  those  who  have  definitely  settled 
the  question  in  the  opposite  way.  By  them  this  little 
book,  if  it  ever  comes  into  their  hands,  will  soon  be  flung 
aside  as  only  another  attempt  at  defence  of  a  position 
already  hopelessly  lost.  There  are  still  individuals,  they 
will  say,  who  believe  that  the  earth  is  flat;  there  are  also 
individuals  who  defend  the  Christianity  of  the  Church, 
miracles  and  atonement  and  all.  In  either  case,  it  will 
be  said,  the  phenomenon  is  interesting  as  a  curious  ex¬ 
ample  of  arrested  development,  but  it  is  nothing  more. 

Such  a  closing  of  the  question,  however,  whether  it 
approve  itself  finally  or  no,  is  in  its  present  form  based 
upon  a  very  imperfect  view  of  the  situation;  it  is  based 
upon  a  grossly  exaggerated  estimate  of  the  achievements 
of  modern  science.  Scientific  investigation,  as  has  already 
been  observed,  has  certainly  accomplished  much ;  it  has  in 
many  respects  produced  a  new  world.  But  there  is  an¬ 
other  aspect  of  the  picture  which  should  not  he  ignored. 
The  modern  world  represents  in  some  respects  an  enor¬ 
mous  improvement  over  the  world  in  which  our  ancestors 


10  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

lived;  but  in  other  respects  it  exhibits  a  lamentable  de¬ 
cline.  The  improvement  appears  in  the  physical  condi¬ 
tions  of  life,  but  in  the  spiritual  realm  there  is  a  corre¬ 
sponding  loss.  The  loss  is  clearest,  perhaps,  in  the  realm 
of  art.  Despite  the  mighty  revolution  which  has  been 
produced  in  the  external  conditions  of  life,  no  great  poet 
is  now  living  to  celebrate  the  change ;  humanity  has  sud¬ 
denly  become  dumb.  Gone,  too,  are  the  great  painters 
and  the  great  musicians  and  the  great  sculptors.  The  art 
that  still  subsists  is  largely  imitative,  and  where  it  is  not 
imitative  it  is  usually  bizarre.  Even  the  appreciation  of 
the  glories  of  the  past  is  gradually  being  lost,  under  the 
influence  of  a  utilitarian  education  that  concerns  itself 
only  with  the  production  of  physical  well-being.  The 
“Outline  of  History”  of  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  with  its  con¬ 
temptuous  neglect  of  all  the  higher  ranges  of  human  life, 
is  a  thoroughly  modern  book. 

This  unprecedented  decline  in  literature  and  art  is  only 
one  manifestation  of  a  more  far-reaching  phenomenon ;  it 
is  only  one  instance  of  that  narrowing  of  the  range  of 
personality  which  has  been  going  on  in  the  modern  world. 
The  whole  development  of  modern  society  has  tended 
mightily  toward  the  limitation  of  the  realm  of  freedom 
for  the  individual  man.  The  tendency  is  most  clearly 
seen  in  socialism ;  a  socialistic  state  would  mean  the  re¬ 
duction  to  a  minimum  of  the  sphere  of  individual  choice. 
Labor  and  recreation,  under  a  socialistic  government, 
would  both  be  prescribed,  and  individual  liberty  would  be 
gone.  But  the  same  tendency  exhibits  itself  to-day  even 
in  those  communities  where  the  name  of  socialism  is  most 
abhorred.  When  once  the  majority  has  determined  that 
a  certain  regime  is  beneficial,  that  regime  without  further 
hesitation  is  forced  ruthlessly  upon  the  individual  man. 
It  never  seems  to  occur  to  modern  legislatures  that  al- 


Introduction 


11 


though  “welfare”  is  good,  forced  welfare  may  be  bad.  In 
other  words,  utilitarianism  is  being  carried  out  to  its 
logical  conclusions  ;  in  the  interests  of  physical  well-being 
the  great  principles  of  liberty  are  being  thrown  ruthlessly 
to  the  winds. 

The  result  is  an  unparalleled  impoverishment  of  human 
life.  Personality  can  only  be  developed  in  the  realm  of 
individual  choice.  And  that  realm,  in  the  modern  state, 
is  being  slowly  but  steadily  contracted.  The  tendency  is 
making  itself  felt  especially  in  the  sphere  of  education. 
The  object  of  education,  it  is  now  assumed,  is  the  produc¬ 
tion  of  the  greatest  happiness  for  the  greatest  number. 
But  the  greatest  happiness  for  the  greatest  number,  it  is 
assumed  further,  can  be  defined  only  by  the  will  of  the 
majority.  Idiosyncrasies  in  education,  therefore,  it  is 
said,  must  be  avoided,  and  the  choice  of  schools  must  be 
taken  away  from  the  individual  parent  and  placed  in  the 
hands  of  the  state.  The  state  then  exercises  its  authority 
through  the  instruments  that  are  ready  to  hand,  and  at 
once,  therefore,  the  child  is  placed  under  the  control  of 
psychological  experts,  themselves  without  the  slightest 
acquaintance  with  the  higher  realms  of  human  life,  who 
proceed  to  prevent  any  such  acquaintance  being  gained 
by  those  who  come  under  their  care.  Such  a  result  is 
being  slightly  delayed  in  America  by  the  remnants  of 
Anglo-Saxon  individualism,  but  the  signs  of  the  times  are 
all  contrary  to  the  maintenance  of  this  half-way  position; 
liberty  is  certainly  held  by  but  a  precarious  tenure  when 
once  its  underlying  principles  have  been  lost.  For  a  time 
it  looked  as  though  the  utilitarianism  which  came  into 
vogue  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  would  be  a 
purely  academic  matter,  without  influence  upon  daily  life. 
But  such  appearances  have  proved  to  be  deceptive.  The 
dominant  tendency,  even  in  a  country  like  America,  which 


12  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

formerly  prided  itself  on  its  freedom  from  bureaucratic 
regulation  of  the  details  of  life,  is  toward  a  drab  utilita¬ 
rianism  in  which  all  higher  aspirations  are  to  be  lost. 

Manifestations  of  such  a  tendency  can  easily  be  seen. 
In  the  state  of  Nebraska,  for  example,  a  law  is  now  in 
force  according  to  which  no  instruction  in  any  school  in 
the  state,  public  or  private,  is  to  be  given  through  the 
medium  of  a  language  other  than  English,  and  no 
language  other  than  English  is  to  be  studied  even  as  a 
language  until  the  child  has  passed  an  examination  before 
the  county  superintendent  of  education  showing  that  the 
eighth  grade  has  been  passed.1  In  other  words,  no  foreign 
language,  apparently  not  even  Latin  or  Greek,  is  to  be 
studied  until  the  child  is  too  old  to  learn  it  well.  It  is 
in  this  way  that  modern  collectivism  deals  with  a  kind  of 
study  which  is  absolutely  essential  to  all  genuine  mental 
advance.  The  minds  of  the  people  of  Nebraska,  and  of 
any  other  states  where  similar  laws  prevail,2  are  to  be 
kept  by  the  power  of  the  state  in  a  permanent  condition 
of  arrested  development. 

It  might  seem  as  though  with  such  laws  obscurantism 
had  reached  its  lowest  possible  depths.  But  there  are 
depths  lower  still.  In  the  state  of  Oregon,  on  Election 
Day,  1922,  a  law  was  passed  by  a  referendum  vote  in 
accordance  with  which  all  children  in  the  state  are  re¬ 
quired  to  attend  the  public  schools.  Christian  schools 
and  private  schools,  at  least  in  the  all-important  lower 
grades,  are  thus  wiped  out  of  existence.  Such  laws,  which 
if  the  present  temper  of  the  people  prevails  will  probably 

1  See  Laws,  Resolutions  and  Memorials  passed  by  the  Legislature 
of  the  State  of  Nebraska  at  the  Thirty-Seventh  Session,  1919,  Chap¬ 
ter  249,  p.  1019. 

2  Compare,  for  example.  Legislative  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly 
of  Ohio,  Vol.  cviii,  1919,  pp.  614f.;  and  Acts  and  Joint  Resolutions 
of  the  General  Assembly  of  Iowa,  1919,  Chapter  198,  p.  219. 


Introduction 


13 


soon  be  extended  far  beyond  the  bounds  of  one  state,1 
mean  of  course  the  ultimate  destruction  of  all  real  edu¬ 
cation.  When  one  considers  what  the  public  schools  of 
America  in  many  places  already  are — their  materialism, 
their  discouragement  of  any  sustained  intellectual  effort, 
their  encouragement  of  the  dangerous  pseudo-scientific 
fads  of  experimental  psychology — one  can  only  be  ap¬ 
palled  by  the  thought  of  a  commonwealth  in  which  there 
is  no  escape  from  such  a  soul-killing  system.  But  the 
principle  of  such  laws  and  their  ultimate  tendency 
are  far  worse  than  the  immediate  results.2  A  public- 

1  In  Michigan,  a  bill  similar  to  the  one  now  passed  in  Oregon 
recently  received  an  enormous  vote  at  a  referendum,  and  an  agitation 
looking  at  least  in  the  same  general  direction  is  said  to  be  con¬ 
tinuing. 

2  The  evil  principle  is  seen  with  special  clearness  in  the  so-called 
“Lusk  Laws”  in  the  state  of  New  York.  One  of  these  refers  to 
teachers  in  the  public  schools.  The  other  provides  that  “No  person, 
firm,  corporation  or  society  shall  conduct,  maintain  or  operate  any 
school,  institute,  class  or  course  of  instruction  in  any  subjects  what¬ 
ever  without  making  application  for  and  being  granted  a  license 
from  the  university  of  the  state  of  New  York  to  so  conduct,  maintain 
or  operate  such  institute,  school,  class  or  course.”  It  is  further 
provided  that  “A  school,  institute,  class  or  course  licensed  as  provided 
in  this  section  shall  be  subject  to  visitation  by  officers  and  employees 
of  the  university  of  the  state  of  New  York.”  See  Laws  of  the  State 
of  New  York,  1921,  Vol.  Ill,  Chapter  667,  pp.  2049-2051.  This  law  is 
so  broadly  worded  that  it  could  not  possibly  be  enforced,  even  by 
the  whole  German  army  in  its  pre-war  efficiency  or  by  all  the 
espionage  system  of  the  Czar.  The  exact  measure  of  enforcement  is 
left  to  the  discretion  of  officials,  and  the  citizens  are  placed  in  con¬ 
stant  danger  of  that  intolerable  interference  with  private  life  which 
a  real  enforcement  of  the  provision  about  “courses  of  instruction 
in  any  subjects  whatever”  would  mean.  One  of  the  exemptions  is 
in  principle  particularly  bad.  “Nor  shall  such  license  be  required,” 
the  law  provides,  “by  schools  now  or  hereafter  established  and  main¬ 
tained  by  a  religious  denomination  or  sect  well  recognized  as  such 
at  the  time  this  section  takes  effect.”  One  can  certainly  rejoice  that 
the  existing  churches  are  freed,  for  the  time  being,  from  the  menace 
involved  in  the  law.  But  in  principle  the  limitation  of  the  exemption 
to  the  existing  churches  really  runs  counter  to  the  fundamental  idea 
of  religious  liberty;  for  it  sets  up  a  distinction  between  established 
religions  and  those  that  are  not  established.  There  was  always 
tolerance  for  established  religious  bodies,  even  in  the  Roman  Empire; 


14  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

school  system,  in  itself,  is  indeed  of  enormous  benefit  to 
the  race.  But  it  is  of  benefit  only  if  it  is  kept  healthy  at 
every  moment  by  the  absolutely  free  possibility  of  the 
competition  of  private  schools.  A  public-school  system, 
if  it  means  the  providing  of  free  education  for  those  who 
desire  it,  is  a  noteworthy  and  beneficent  achievement  of 
modern  times ;  but  when  once  it  becomes  monopolistic  it  is 
the  most  perfect  instrument  of  tyranny  which  has  yet 
been  devised.  Freedom  of  thought  in  the  middle  ages  was 
combated  by  the  Inquisition,  but  the  modern  method  is 
far  more  effective.  Place  the  lives  of  children  in  their 
formative  years,  despite  the  convictions  of  their  parents, 
under  the  intimate  control  of  experts  appointed  by  the 
state,  force  them  then  to  attend  schools  where  the  higher 
aspirations  of  humanity  are  crushed  out,  and  where  the 
mind  is  filled  with  the  materialism  of  the  day,  and  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how  even  the  remnants  of  liberty  can  sub¬ 
sist.  Such  a  tyranny,  supported  as  it  is  by  a  perverse 
technique  used  as  the  instrument  in  destroying  human 
souls,  is  certainly  far  more  dangerous  than  the  crude 
tyrannies  of  the  past,  which  despite  their  weapons  of  fire 
and  sword  permitted  thought  at  least  to  be  free. 

The  truth  is  that  the  materialistic  paternalism  of  the 
present  day,  if  allowed  to  go  on  unchecked,  will  rapidly 

but  religious  liberty  consists  in  equal  rights  for  religious  bodies  that 
are  new.  The  other  exemptions  do  not  remove  in  the  slightest  the 
oppressive  character  of  the  law.  Bad  as  the  law  must  be  in  its 
immediate  effects,  it  is  far  more  alarming  in  what  it  reveals  about 
the  temper  of  the  people.  A  people  which  tolerates  such  preposterous 
legislation  upon  the  statute  books  is  a  people  that  has  wandered  far 
away  from  the  principles  of  American  liberty.  True  patriotism  will 
not  conceal  the  menace,  but  will  rather  seek  to  recall  the  citizens  to 
those  great  principles  for  which  our  fathers,  in  America  and  in 
England,  were  willing  to  bleed  and  die.  There  are  some  encouraging 
indications  that  the  Lusk  Laws  may  soon  be  repealed.  If  they  are 
repealed,  they  will  still  serve  as  a  warning  that  only  by  constant 
watchfulness  can  liberty  be  preserved. 


Introduction 


15 


make  of  America  one  huge  “Main  Street,”  where  spiritual 
adventure  will  be  discouraged  and  democracy  will  be  re¬ 
garded  as  consisting  in  the  reduction  of  all  mankind  to 
the  proportions  of  the  narrowest  and  least  gifted  of  the 
citizens.  God  grant  that  there  may  come  a  reaction,  and 
that  the  great  principles  of  Anglo-Saxon  liberty  may 
be  rediscovered  before  it  is  too  late !  But  whatever 
solution  be  found  for  the  educational  and  social  problems 
of  our  own  country,  a  lamentable  condition  must  be  de¬ 
tected  in  the  world  at  large.  It  cannot  be  denied  that 
great  men  are  few  or  non-existent,  and  that  there  has  been 
a  general  contracting  of  the  area  of  personal  life.  Ma¬ 
terial  betterment  has  gone  hand  in  hand  with  spiritual 
decline. 

Such  a  condition  of  the  world  ought  to  cause  the  choice 
between  modernism  and  traditionalism,  liberalism  and 
conservatism,  to  be  approached  without  any  of  the  preju¬ 
dice  which  is  too  often  displayed.  In  view  of  the  lament¬ 
able  defects  of  modern  life,  a  type  of  religion  certainly 
should  not  be  commended  simply  because  it  is  modern  or 
condemned  simply  because  it  is  old.  On  the  contrary,  the 
condition  of  mankind  is  such  that  one  may  well  ask  what 
it  is  that  made  the  men  of  past  generations  so  great  and 
the  men  of  the  present  generation  so  small.  In  the  midst 
of  all  the  material  achievements  of  modern  life,  one  may 
well  ask  the  question  whether  in  gaining  the  whole  world 
we  have  not  lost  our  own  soul.  Are  we  forever  condemned 
to  live  the  sordid  life  of  utilitarianism?  Or  is  there  some 
lost  secret  which  if  rediscovered  will  restore  to  mankind 
something  of  the  glories  of  the  past? 

Such  a  secret  the  writer  of  this  little  book  would  dis¬ 
cover  in  the  Christian  religion.  But  the  Christian  religion 
which  is  meant  is  certainly  not  the  religion  of  the  modern 
liberal  Church,  but  a  message  of  divine  grace,  almost  for- 


16  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

gotten  now,  as  it  was  in  the  middle  ages,  but  destined  to 
burst  forth  once  more  in  God’s  good  time,  in  a  new 
Reformation,  and  bring  light  and  freedom  to  mankind. 
What  that  message  is  can  be  made  clear,  as  is  the  case 
with  all  definition,  only  by  way  of  exclusion,  by  way  of 
contrast.  In  setting  forth  the  current  liberalism,  now 
almost  dominant  in  the  Church,  over  against  Christianity, 
we  are  animated,  therefore,  by  no  merely  negative  or 
polemic  purpose ;  on  the  contrary,  by  showing  what  Chris¬ 
tianity  is  not  we  hope  to  be  able  to  show  what  Christianity 
is,  in  order  that  men  may  be  led  to  turn  from  the  weak  and 
beggarly  elements  and  have  recourse  again  to  the  grace 
of  God. 


CHAPTER  II 


DOCTRINE 

Modern  liberalism  in  the  Church,  whatever  judgment 
may  be  passed  upon  it,  is  at  any  rate  no  longer  merely  an 
academic  matter.  It  is  no  longer  a  matter  merely  of 
theological  seminaries  or  universities.  On  the  contrary 
its  attack  upon  the  fundamentals  of  the  Christian  faith 
is  being  carried  on  vigorously  by  Sunday-School  “lesson- 
helps,”  by  the  pulpit,  and  by  the  religious  press.  If  such 
an  attack  be  unjustified,  the  remedy  is  not  to  be  found, 
as  some  devout  persons  have  suggested,  in  the  abolition 
of  theological  seminaries,  or  the  abandonment  of  scien¬ 
tific  theology,  but  rather  in  a  more  earnest  search  after 
truth  and  a  more  loyal  devotion  to  it  when  once  it  is 
found. 

At  the  theological  seminaries  and  universities,  however, 
the  roots  of  the  great  issue  are  more  clearly  seen  than  in 
the  world  at  large;  among  students  the  reassuring  em¬ 
ployment  of  traditional  phrases  is  often  abandoned,  and 
the  advocates  of  a  new  religion  are  not  at  pains,  as  they 
are  in  the  Church  at  large,  to  maintain  an  appearance  of 
conformity  with  the  past.  But  such  frankness,  we  are 
convinced,  ought  to  be  extended  to  the  people  as  a  whole. 
Few  desires  on  the  part  of  religious  teachers  have  been 
more  harmfully  exaggerated  than  the  desire  to  “avoid 
giving  offence.”  Only  too  often  that  desire  has  come 
perilously  near  dishonesty ;  the  religious  teacher,  in  his 
heart  of  hearts,  is  well  aware  of  the  radicalism  of  his 

17 


18  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

views,  but  is  unwilling  to  relinquish  his  place  in  the  hal¬ 
lowed  atmosphere  of  the  Church  by  speaking  his  whole 
mind.  Against  all  such  policy  of  concealment  or  pallia¬ 
tion,  our  sympathies  are  altogether  with  those  men, 
whether  radicals  or  conservatives,  who  have  a  passion  for 
light. 

What  then,  at  bottom,  when  the  traditional  phrases 
have  all  been  stripped  away,  is  the  real  meaning  of  the 
present  revolt  against  the  fundamentals  of  the  Christian 
faith?  What,  in  brief,  are  the  teachings  of  modern  lib¬ 
eralism  as  over  against  the  teachings  of  Christianity? 

At  the  outset,  we  are  met  with  an  objection.  “Teach¬ 
ings, ’’  it  is  said,  “are  unimportant;  the  exposition  of  the 
teachings  of  liberalism  and  the  teachings  of  Christianity, 
therefore,  can  arouse  no  interest  at  the  present  day; 
creeds  are  merely  the  changing  expression  of  a  unitary 
Christian  experience,  and  provided  only  they  express  that 
experience  they  are  all  equally  good.  The  teachings  pf 
liberalism,  therefore,  might  be  as  far  removed  as  possible 
from  the  teachings  of  historic  Christianity,  and  yet  the 
two  might  be  at  bottom  the  same.” 

Such  is  the  way  in  which  expression  is  often  given  to 
the  modern  hostility  to  “doctrine.”  But  is  it  really  doc¬ 
trine  as  such  that  is  objected  to,  and  not  rather  one  par¬ 
ticular  doctrine  in  the  interests  of  another?  Undoubtedly, 
in  many  forms  of  liberalism  it  is  the  latter  alternative 
which  fits  the  case.  There  are  doctrines  of  modern  lib¬ 
eralism,  just  as  tenaciously  and  intolerantly  upheld  as 
any  doctrines  that  find  a  place  in  the  historic  creeds. 
Such  for  example  are  the  liberal  doctrines  of  the  universal 
fatherhood  of  God  and  the  universal  brotherhood  of 
man.  These  doctrines  are,  as  we  shall  see,  contrary  to 
the  doctrines  of  the  Christian  religion.  But  doctrines 
they  are  all  the  same,  and  as  such  they  require  intellectual 


Doctrine 


19 


defence.  In  seeming  to  object  to  all  theology,  the  liberal 
preacher  is  often  merely  objecting  to  one  system  of  the¬ 
ology  in  the  interests  of  another.  And  the  desired  im¬ 
munity  from  theological  controversy  has  not  yet  been 
attained. 

Sometimes,  however,  the  modern  objection  to  doctrine 
is  more  seriously  meant.  And  whether  the  objection  be 
well-founded  or  not,  the  real  meaning  of  it  should  at  least 
be  faced. 

That  meaning  is  perfectly  plain.  The  objection  in¬ 
volves  an  out-and-out  skepticism.  If  all  creeds  are  equally 
true,  then  since  they  are  contradictory  to  one  another, 
they  are  all  equally  false,  or  at  least  equally  uncertain. 
We  are  indulging,  therefore,  in  a  mere  juggling  with 
words.  To  say  that  all  creeds  are  equally  true,  and  that 
they  are  based  upon  experience,  is  merely  to  fall  back 
upon  that  agnosticism  which  fifty  years  ago  was  regarded 
as  the  deadliest  enemy  of  the  Church.  The  enemy  has  not 
really  been  changed  into  a  friend  merely  because  he  has 
been  received  within  the  camp.  Very  different  is  the  Chris¬ 
tian  conception  of  a  creed.  According  to  the  Christian 
conception,  a  creed  is  not  a  mere  expression  of  Christian 
experience,  but  on  the  contrary  it  is  a  setting  forth  of 
those  facts  upon  which  experience  is  based. 

But,  it  will  be  said,  Christianity  is  a  life,  not  a  doctrine. 
The  assertion  is  often  made,  and  it  has  an  appearance  of 
godliness.  But  it  is  radically  false,  and  to  detect  its 
falsity  one  does  not  even  need  to  be  a  Christian.  For  to 
say  that  “Christianity  is  a  life”  is  to  make  an  assertion 
in  the  sphere  of  history.  The  assertion  does  not  lie  in  the 
sphere  of  ideals ;  it  is  far  different  from  saying  that  Chris¬ 
tianity  ought  to  be  a  life,  or  that  the  ideal  religion  is  a 
life.  The  assertion  that  Christianity  is  a  life  is  subject 
to  historical  investigation  exactly  as  is  the  assertion  that 


20  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

the  Roman  Empire  under  Nero  was  a  free  democracy* 
Possibly  the  Roman  Empire  under  Nero  would  have  been 
better  if  it  had  been  a  free  democracy,  but  the  historical 
question  is  simply  whether  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  a 
free  democracy  or  no.  Christianity  is  an  historical  phe¬ 
nomenon,  like  the  Roman  Empire,  or  the  Kingdom  of 
Prussia,  or  the  United  States  of  America.  And  as  an 
historical  phenomenon  it  must  be  investigated  on  the  basis 
of  historical  evidence. 

Is  it  true,  then,  that  Christianity  is  not  a  doctrine  but 
a  life?  The  question  can  be  settled  only  by  an  examina¬ 
tion  of  the  beginnings  of  Christianity.  Recognition  of 
that  fact  does  not  involve  any  acceptance  of  Christian 
belief ;  it  is  merely  a  matter  of  common  sense  and  common 
honesty.  At  the  foundation  of  the  life  of  every  corpora¬ 
tion  is  the  incorporation  paper,  in  which  the  objects  of 
the  corporation  are  set  forth.  Other  objects  may  be 
vastly  more  desirable  than  those  objects,  but  if  the  direc¬ 
tors  use  the  name  and  the  resources  of  the  corporation  to 
pursue  the  other  objects  they  are  acting  ultra  vires  of  the 
corporation.  So  it  is  with  Christianity.  It  is  perfectly 
conceivable  that  the  originators  of  the  Christian  move¬ 
ment  had  no  right  to  legislate  for  subsequent  generations ; 
but  at  any  rate  they  did  have  an  inalienable  right  to 
legislate  for  all  generations  that  should  choose  to  bear 
the  name  of  “Christian.”  It  is  conceivable  that  Chris¬ 
tianity  may  now  have  to  be  abandoned,  and  another  re¬ 
ligion  substituted  for  it ;  but  at  any  rate  the  question 
what  Christianity  is  can  be  determined  only  by  an  exam¬ 
ination  of  the  beginnings  of  Christianity. 

The  beginnings  of  Christianity  constitute  a  fairly  defi¬ 
nite  historical  phenomenon.  The  Christian  movement 
originated  a  few  days  after  the  death  of  Jesus  of  Naza¬ 
reth.  It  is  doubtful  whether  anything  that  preceded  the 


Doctrine 


21 


death  of  Jesus  can  be  called  Christianity.  At  any  rate, 
if  Christianity  existed  before  that  event,  it  was  Christian¬ 
ity  only  in  a  preliminary  stage.  The  name  originated 
after  the  death  of  Jesus,  and  the  thing  itself  was  also 
something  new.  Evidently  there  was  an  important  new 
beginning  among  the  disciples  of  Jesus  in  Jerusalem  after 
the  crucifixion.  At  that  time  is  to  be  placed  the  beginning 
of  the  remarkable  movement  which  spread  out  from  Jeru¬ 
salem  into  the  Gentile  world — the  movement  which  is 
called  Christianity. 

About  the  early  stages  of  this  movement  definite  his¬ 
torical  information  has  been  preserved  in  the  Epistles  of 
Paul,  which  are  regarded  by  all  serious  historians  as 
genuine  products  of  the  first  Christian  generation.  The 
writer  of  the  Epistles  had  been  in  direct  communication 
with  those  intimate  friends  of  Jesus  who  had  begun  the 
Christian  movement  in  Jerusalem,  and  in  the  Epistles  he 
makes  it  abundantly  plain  what  the  fundamental  char¬ 
acter  of  the  movement  was. 

But  if  any  one  fact  is  clear,  on  the  basis  of  this  evi¬ 
dence,  it  is  that  the  Christian  movement  at  its  inception 
was  not  just  a  way  of  life  in  the  modern  sense,  but  a  way 
of  life  founded  upon  a  message.  It  was  based,  not  upon 
mere  feeling,  not  upon  a  mere  program  of  work,  but  upon 
an  account  of  facts.  In  other  words  it  was  based  upon 
doctrine. 

Certainly  with  regard  to  Paul  himself  there  should  be 
no  debate;  Paul  certainly  was  not  indifferent  to  doctrine; 
on  the  contrary,  doctrine  was  the  very  basis  of  his  life. 
His  devotion  to  doctrine  did  not,  it  is  true,  make  him 
incapable  of  a  magnificent  tolerance.  One  notable  ex¬ 
ample  of  such  tolerance  is  to  be  found  during  his  im¬ 
prisonment  at  Rome,  as  attested  by  the  Epistle  to  the 
Philippians.  Apparently  certain  Christian  teachers  at 


22  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

Rome  had  been  jealous  of  Paul’s  greatness.  As  long  as 
he  had  been  at  liberty  they  had  been  obliged  to  take  a 
secondary  place;  but  now  that  he  was  in  prison,  they 
seized  the  supremacy.  They  sought  to  raise  up  affliction 
for  Paul  in  his  bonds ;  they  preached  Christ  even  of  envy 
and  strife.  In  short,  the  rival  preachers  made  of  the 
preaching  of  the  gospel  a  means  to  the  gratification  of 
low  personal  ambition;  it  seems  to  have  been  about  as 
mean  a  piece  of  business  as  could  well  be  conceived.  But 
Paul  was  not  disturbed.  “Whether  in  pretence,  or  in 
truth,”  he  said,  “Christ  is  preached;  and  I  therein  do 
rejoice,  yea,  and  will'  rejoice”  (Phil.  i.  18).  The  way 
in  which  the  preaching  was  being  carried  on  was  wrong, 
but  the  message  itself  was  true;  and  Paul  was  far  more 
interested  in  the  content  of  the  message  than  in  the  man¬ 
ner  of  its  presentation.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive  a  finer 
piece  of  broad-minded  tolerance. 

But  the  tolerance  of  Paul  was  not  indiscriminate.  He 
displayed  no  tolerance,  for  example,  in  Galatia.  There, 
too,  there  were  rival  preachers.  But  Paul  had  no  toler¬ 
ance  for  them.  “But  though  we,”  he  said,  “or  an  angel 
from  heaven,  preach  any  other  gospel  unto  you  than  that 
which  we  have  preached  unto  you,  let  him  be  accursed” 
(Gal.  i.  8).  What  is  the  reason  for  the  difference  in  the 
apostle’s  attitude  in  the  two  cases?  What  is  the  reason 
for  the  broad  tolerance  in  Rome,  and  the  fierce  anathemas 
in  Galatia?  The  answer  is  perfectly  plain.  In  Rome,  Paul 
was  tolerant,  because  there  the  content  of  the  message 
that  was  being  proclaimed  by  the  rival  teachers  was  true ; 
in  Galatia  he  was  intolerant,  because  there  the  content  of 
the  rival  message  was  false.  In  neither  case  did  person¬ 
alities  have  anything  to  do  with  Paul’s  attitude.  No 
doubt  the  motives  of  the  Judaizers  in  Galatia  were  far 
from  pure,  and  in  an  incidental  way  Paul  does  point  out 


Doctrine 


23 


their  impurity.  But  that  was  not  the  ground  of  his  oppo¬ 
sition.  The  Judaizers  no  doubt  were  morally  far  from 
perfect,  but  Paul’s  opposition  to  them  would  have  been 
exactly  the  same  if  they  had  all  been  angels  from  heaven. 
His  opposition  was  based  altogether  upon  the  falsity  of 
their  teaching ;  they  were  substituting  for  the  one  true 
gospel  a  false  gospel  which  was  no  gospel  at  all.  It  never 
occurred  to  Paul  that  a  gospel  might  be  true  for  one  man 
and  not  for  another ;  the  blight  of  pragmatism  had  never 
fallen  upon  his  soul.  Paul  was  convinced  of  the  objective 
truth  of  the  gospel  message,  and  devotion  to  that  truth 
was  the  great  passion  of  his  life.  Christianity  for  Paul 
was  not  only  a  life,  but  also  a  doctrine,  and  logically  the 
doctrine  came  first.1 

But  what  was  the  difference  between  the  teaching  of 
Paul  and  the  teaching  of  the  Judaizers?  What  was  it  that 
gave  rise  to  the  stupendous  polemic  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians?  To  the  modern  Church  the  difference  would 
have  seemed  to  be  a  mere  theological  subtlety.  About 
many  things  the  Judaizers  were  in  perfect  agreement  with 
Paul.  The  Judaizers  believed  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah; 
there  is  not  a  shadow  of  evidence  that  they  objected  to 
Paul’s  lofty  view  of  the  person  of  Christ.  Without  the 
slightest  doubt,  they  believed  that  Jesus  had  really  risen 
from  the  dead.  They  believed,  moreover,  that  faith  in 
Christ  was  necessary  to  salvation.  But  the  trouble  was, 
they  believed  that  something  else  was  also  necessary ;  they 
believed  that  what  Christ  had  done  needed  to  be  pieced 
out  by  the  believer’s  own  effort  to  keep  the  Law.  Prom  the 

1  See  The  Origin  of  Paul's  Religion,  1921,  p.  168.  It  is  not  main¬ 
tained  that  doctrine  for  Paul  comes  temporally  before  life,  but  only 
that  it  comes  logically  first.  Here  is  to  be  found  the  answer  to  the 
objection  which  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  raised  against  the  assertion  in 
The  Origin  of  Paul’s  Religion.  See  The  Outlook,  vol.  132,  1922, 
pp.  104f. 


24  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

modern  point  of  view  the  difference  would  have  seemed  to 
be  very  slight.  Paul  as  well  as  the  Judaizers  believed  that 
the  keeping  of  the  law  of  God,  in  its  deepest  import,  is 
inseparably  connected  with  faith.  The  difference  con¬ 
cerned  only  the  logical — not  even,  perhaps,  the  temporal 
— order  of  three  steps.  Paul  said  that  a  man  (1)  first 
believes  on  Christ,  (2)  then  is  justified  before  God,  (3) 
then  immediately  proceeds  to  keep  God’s  law.  The  Juda¬ 
izers  said  that  a  man  (1)  believes  on  Christ  and  (2)  keeps 
the  law  of  God  the  best  he  can,  and  then  (3)  is  justified. 
The  difference  would  seem  to  modern  “practical”  Chris¬ 
tians  to  be  a  highly  subtle  and  intangible  matter,  hardly 
worthy  of  consideration  at  all  in  view  of  the  large  measure 
of  agreement  in  the  practical  realm.  What  a  splendid 
cleaning  up  of  the  Gentile  cities  it  would  have  been  if  the 
Judaizers  had  succeeded  in  extending  to  those  cities  the 
observance  of  the  Mosaic  law,  even  including  the  unfor¬ 
tunate  ceremonial  observances !  Surely  Paul  ought  to 
have  made  common  cause  with  teachers  who  were  so  nearly 
in  agreement  with  him;  surely  he  ought  to  have  applied 
to  them  the  great  principle  of  Christian  unity. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  Paul  did  nothing  of  the 
kind;  and  only  because  he  (and  others)  did  nothing  of 
the  kind  does  the  Christian  Church  exist  to-day.  Paul 
saw  very  clearly  that  the  difference  between  the  Judaizers 
and  himself  was  the  difference  between  two  entirely  dis¬ 
tinct  types  of  religion;  it  was  the  difference  between  a 
religion  of  merit  and  a  religion  of  grace.  If  Christ  pro¬ 
vides  only  a  part  of  our  salvation,  leaving  us  to  provide 
the  rest,  then  we  are  still  hopeless  under  the  load  of  sin. 
For  no  matter  how  small  the  gap  which  must  be  bridged 
before  salvation  can  be  attained,  the  awakened  conscience 
sees  clearly  that  our  wretched  attempt  at  goodness  is 
insufficient  even  to  bridge  that  gap.  The  guilty  soul 


Doctrine 


25 


enters  again  into  the  hopeless  reckoning  with  God,  to 
determine  whether  we  have  really  done  our  part.  And 
thus  we  groan  again  under  the  old  bondage  of  the  law. 
Such  an  attempt  to  piece  out  the  work  of  Christ  by  our 
own  merit,  Paul  saw  clearly,  is  the  very  essence  of  un¬ 
belief  ;  Christ  will  do  everything  or  nothing,  and  the  only 
hope  is  to  throw  ourselves  unreservedly  on  His  mercy  and 
trust  Him  for  all. 

Paul  certainly  was  right.  The  difference  which  divided 
him  from  the  Judaizers  was  no  mere  theological  subtlety, 
but  concerned  the  very  heart  and  core  of  the  religion  of 
Christ.  “Just  as  I  am  without  one  plea,  But  that  Thy 
blood  was  shed  for  me” — that  was  what  Paul  was  con¬ 
tending  for  in  Galatia ;  that  hymn  would  never  have  been 
written  if  the  Judaizers  had  won.  And  without  the  thing 
which  that  hymn  expresses  there  is  no  Christianity  at  all. 

Certainly,  then,  Paul  was  no  advocate  of  an  undogmatic 
religion;  he  was  interested  above  everything  else  in  the 
objective  and  universal  truth  of  his  message.  So  much 
will  probably  be  admitted  by  serious  historians,  no  matter 
what  their  own  personal  attitude  toward  the  religion  of 
Paul  may  be.  Sometimes,  indeed,  the  modern  liberal 
preacher  seeks  to  produce  an  opposite  impression  by  quot¬ 
ing  out  of  their  context  words  of  Paul  which  he  interprets 
in  a  way  as  far  removed  as  possible  from  the  original 
sense.  The  truth  is,  it  is  hard  to  give  Paul  up.  The  mod¬ 
ern  liberal  desires  to  produce  upon  the  minds  of  simple 
Christians  (and  upon  his  own  mind)  the  impression  of 
some  sort  of  continuity  between  modern  liberalism  and 
the  thought  and  life  of  the  great  Apostle.  But  such  an 
impression  is  altogether  misleading.  Paul  was  not  inter¬ 
ested  merely  in  the  ethical  principles  of  Jesus ;  he  was  not 
interested  merely  in  general  principles  of  religion  or  of 
ethics.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  interested  in  the  redeem- 


26  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

ing  work  of  Christ  and  its  effect  upon  us.  His  primary 
interest  was  in  Christian  doctrine,  and  Christian  doctrine 
not  merely  in  its  presuppositions  but  at  its  centre.  If 
Christianity  is  to  be  made  independent  of  doctrine,  then 
Paulinism  must  be  removed  from  Christianity  root  and 
branch. 

But  what  of  that?  Some  men  are  not  afraid  of  the  con¬ 
clusion.  If  Paulinism  must  be  removed,  they  say,  we  can 
get  along  without  it.  May  it  not  turn  out  that  in  intro¬ 
ducing  a  doctrinal  element  into  the  life  of  the  Church  Paul 
was  only  perverting  a  primitive  Christianity  which  was 
as  independent  of  doctrine  as  even  the  modern  liberal 
preacher  could  desire? 

This  suggestion  is  clearly  overruled  by  the  historical 
evidence.  The  problem  certainly  cannot  be  solved  in  so 
easy  a  way.  Many  attempts  have  indeed  been  made  to 
separate  the  religion  of  Paul  sharply  from  that  of  the 
primitive  Jerusalem  Church;  many  attempts  have  been 
made  to  show  that  Paul  introduced  an  entirely  new  prin¬ 
ciple  into  the  Christian  movement  or  even  was  the  founder 
of  a  new  religion.1  But  all  such  attempts  have  resulted 
in  failure.  The  Pauline  Epistles  themselves  attest  a 
fundamental  unity  of  principle  between  Paul  and  the  orig¬ 
inal  companions  of  Jesus,  and  the  whole  early  history  of 
the  Church  becomes  unintelligible  except  on  the  basis  of 
such  unity.  Certainly  with  regard  to  the  fundamentally 
doctrinal  character  of  Christianity  Paul  was  no  inno¬ 
vator.  The  fact  appears  in  the  whole  character  of  Paul’s 
relationship  to  the  Jerusalem  Church  as  it  is  attested  by 
the  Epistles,  and  it  also  appears  with  startling  clearness 
in  the  precious  passage  in  I  Cor.  xv.  3-7,  where  Paul  sum¬ 
marizes  the  tradition  which  he  had  received  from  the 

1  Some  account  of  these  attempts  has  been  given  by  the  present 
writer  in  The  Origin  of  Paul’s  Religion ,  1921. 


Doctrine 


27 

primitive  Church.  What  is  it  that  forms  the  content  of 
that  primitive  teaching?  Is  it  a  general  principle  of  the 
fatherliness  of  God  or  the  brotherliness  of  man?  Is  it  a 
vague  admiration  for  the  character  of  Jesus  such  as  that 
which  prevails  in  the  modern  Church?  Nothing  could  be 
further  from  the  fact.  “Christ  died  for  our  sins,”  said 
the  primitive  disciples,  “according  to  the  Scriptures ;  he 
was  buried ;  he  has  been  raised  on  the  third  day  according 
to  the  Scriptures.”  From  the  beginning,  the  Christian 
gospel,  as  indeed  the  name  “gospel”  or  “good  news”  im¬ 
plies,  consisted  in  an  account  of  something  that  had  hap¬ 
pened.  And  from  the  beginning,  the  meaning  of  the  hap¬ 
pening  was  set  forth ;  and  when  the  meaning  of  the 
happening  was  set  forth  then  there  was  Christian  doc¬ 
trine.  “Christ  died” — that  is  history ;  “Christ  died  for 
our  sins” — that  is  doctrine.  Without  these  two  elements, 
joined  in  an  absolutely  indissoluble  union,  there  is  no 
Christianity. 

It  is  perfectly  clear,  then,  that  the  first  Christian  mis¬ 
sionaries  did  not  simply  come  forward  with  an  exhorta¬ 
tion;  they  did  not  say:  “Jesus  of  Nazareth  lived  a 
wonderful  life  of  filial  piety,  and  we  call  upon  you  our 
hearers  to  yield  yourselves,  as  we  have  done,  to  the  spell 
of  that  life.”  Certainly  that  is  what  modern  historians 
would  have  expected  the  first  Christian  missionaries  to 
say,  but  it  must  be  recognized  that  as  a  matter  of  fact 
they  said  nothing  of  the  kind.  Conceivably  the  first  dis¬ 
ciples  of  Jesus,  after  the  catastrophe  of  His  death,  might 
have  engaged  in  quiet  meditation  upon  His  teaching. 
They  might  have  said  to  themselves  that  “Our  Father 
which  art  in  heaven”  was  a  good  way  of  addressing  God 
even  though  the  One  who  had  taught  them  that  prayer 
was  dead.  They  might  have  clung  to  the  ethical  principles 
of  Jesus  and  cherished  the  vague  hope  that  the  One  who 


28  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

enunciated  such  principles  had  some  personal  existence 
beyond  the  grave.  Such  reflections  might  have  seemed 
very  natural  to  the  modern  man.  But  to  Peter,  James 
and  John  they  certainly  never  occurred.  Jesus  had  raised 
in  them  high  hopes ;  those  hopes  were  destroyed  by  the 
Cross ;  and  reflections  on  the  general  principles  of  religion 
and  ethics  were  quite  powerless  to  revive  the  hopes  again. 
The  disciples  of  Jesus  had  evidently  been  far  inferior  to 
their  Master  in  every  possible  way;  they  had  not  under¬ 
stood  His  lofty  spiritual  teaching,  but  even  in  the  hour  of 
solemn  crisis  had  quarreled  over  great  places  in  the  ap¬ 
proaching  Kingdom.  What  hope  was  there  that  such 
men  could  succeed  where  their  Master  had  failed?  Even 
when  He  had  been  with  them,  they  had  been  powerless ; 
and  now  that  Pie  was  taken  from  them,  what  little  power 
they  may  have  had  was  gone.1 

Yet  those  same  weak,  discouraged  men,  within  a  few 
days  after  the  death  of  their  Master,  instituted  the  most 
important  spiritual  movement  that  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  What  had  produced  the  astonishing  change?  What 
had  transformed  the  weak  and  cowardly  disciples  into  the 
spiritual  conquerors  of  the  world?  Evidently  it  was  not 
the  mere  memory  of  Jesus’  life,  for  that  was  a  source  of 
sadness  rather  than  of  joy.  Evidently  the  disciples  of 
Jesus,  within  the  few  days  between  the  crucifixion  and 
the  beginning  of  their  work  in  Jerusalem,  had  received 
some  new  equipment  for  their  task.  What  that  new 
equipment  was,  at  least  the  outstanding  and  external 
element  in  it  (to  say  nothing  of  the  endowment  which 
Christian  men  believe  to  have  been  received  at  Pentecost), 
is  perfectly  plain.  The  great  weapon  with  which  the 
disciples  of  Jesus  set  out  to  conquer  the  world  was  not 

1  Compare  History  and  Faith ,  1915  (reprinted  from  Princeton 
Theological  Review  for  July,  1915),  pp.  lOf. 


Doctrine 


29 


a  mere  comprehension  of  eternal  principles ;  it  was  an 
historical  message,  an  account  of  something  that  had 
recently  happened,  it  was  the  message,  “He  is  risen.” 1 

But  the  message  of  the  resurrection  was  not  isolated. 
It  was  connected  with  the  death  of  Jesus,  seen  now  to  be 
not  a  failure  but  a  triumphant  act  of  divine  grace ;  it  was 
connected  with  the  entire  appearance  of  Jesus  upon  earth. 
The  coming  of  Jesus  was  understood  now  as  an  act  of 
God  by  which  sinful  men  were  saved.  The  primitive 
Church  was  concerned  not  merely  with  what  Jesus  had 
said,  but  also,  and  primarily,  with  what  Jesus  had  done. 
The  world  was  to  be  redeemed  through  the  proclamation 
of  an  event.  And  with  the  event  went  the  meaning  of  the 
event ;  and  the  setting  forth  of  the  event  with  the  meaning 
of  the  event  was  doctrine.  These  two  elements  are  always 
combined  in  the  Christian  message.  The  narration  of  the 
facts  is  history ;  the  narration  of  the  facts  with  the  mean¬ 
ing  of  the  facts  is  doctrine.  “Suffered  under  Pontius 
Pilate,  was  crucified,  dead  and  buried” — that  is  history. 
“He  loved  me  and  gave  Himself  for  me” — that  is  doctrine. 
Such  was  the  Christianity  of  the  primitive  Church. 

“But,”  it  may  be  said,  “even  if  the  Christianity  of  the 
primitive  Church  was  dependent  upon  doctrine,  we  may 
still  emancipate  ourselves  from  such  dependence;  we  may 
appeal  from  the  primitive  Church  to  Jesus  Himself.  It 
has  already  been  admitted  that  if  doctrine  is  to  be  aban¬ 
doned  Paul  must  be  abandoned;  it  may  now  be  admitted 
that  if  doctrine  is  to  be  abandoned,  even  the  primitive 
Jerusalem  Church,  with  its  message  of  the  resurrection, 
must  be  abandoned.  But  possibly  we  can  still  find  in 
Jesus  Himself  the  simple,  non-doctrinal  religion  that  we 

1  Compare  A  Rapid  Survey  of  the  Literature  and  History  of  New 
Testament  Times,  published  by  the  Presbyterian  Board  of  Publica¬ 
tion  and  Sabbath  School  Work,  Student’s  Text  Book,  pp.  42 f. 


30  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

desire.”  Such  is  the  real  meaning  of  the  modern  slogan, 
“Back  to  Christ.” 

Must  we  really  take  such  a  step  as  that?  It  would 
certainly  be  an  extraordinary  step.  A  great  religion 
derived  its  power  from  the  message  of  the  redeeming  work 
of  Christ;  without  that  message  Jesus  and  His  disciples 
would  soon  have  been  forgotten.  The  same  message,  with 
its  implications,  has  been  the  very  heart  and  soul  of  the 
Christian  movement  throughout  the  centuries.  Yet  we 
are  now  asked  to  believe  that  the  thing  that  has  given 
Christianity  its  power  all  through  the  centuries  was  a 
blunder,  that  the  originators  of  the  movement  misunder¬ 
stood  radically  the  meaning  of  their  Master’s  life  and 
work,  and  that  it  has  been  left  to  us  moderns  to  get  the 
first  inkling  of  the  initial  mistake.  Even  if  this  view  of 
the  case  were  correct,  and  even  if  Jesus  Himself  taught  a 
religion  like  that  of  modern  liberalism,  it  would  still  be 
doubtful  whether  such  a  religion  could  rightly  be  called 
Christianity ;  for  the  name  Christian  was  first  applied  only 
after  the  supposed  decisive  change  had  taken  place,  and  it 
is  very  doubtful  whether  a  name  which  through  nineteen 
centuries  has  been  so  firmly  attached  to  one  religion  ought 
now  suddenly  to  be  applied  to  another.  If  the  first  dis¬ 
ciples  of  Jesus  really  departed  so  radically  from  their 
Master,  then  the  better  terminology  would  probably  lead 
us  to  say  simply  that  Jesus  was  not  the  founder  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  but  of  a  simple,  non-doctrinal  religion,  long  for¬ 
gotten,  but  now  rediscovered  by  modern  men.  Even  so, 
the  contrast  between  liberalism  and  Christianity  would 
still  appear. 

But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  such  a  strange  state  of  affairs 
does  not  prevail  at  all.  It  is  not  true  that  in  basing 
Christianity  upon  an  event  the  disciples  of  Jesus  were 
departing  from  the  teaching  of  their  Master.  For  cer- 


Doctrine 


31 


tainly  Jesus  Himself  did  the  same  thing.  Jesus  did  not 
content  Himself  with  enunciating  general  principles  of 
religion  and  ethics;  the  picture  of  Jesus  as  a  sage  similar 
to  Confucius,  uttering  wise  maxims  about  conduct,  may 
satisfy  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  as  he  trips  along  lightly  over  the 
problems  of  history,  but  it  disappears  so  soon  as  one 
engages  seriously  in  historical  research.  “Repent,”  said 
Jesus,  “for  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  at  hand.”  The 
gospel  which  Jesus  proclaimed  in  Galilee  consisted  in  the 
proclamation  of  a  coming  Kingdom.  But  clearly  Jesus 
regarded  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  as  an  event,  or  as  a 
series  of  events.  No  doubt  He  also  regarded  the  Kingdom 
as  a  present  reality  in  the  souls  of  men ;  no  doubt  He 
represented  the  Kingdom  in  one  sense  as  already  present. 
We  shall  not  really  succeed  in  getting  along  without  this 
aspect  of  the  matter  in  our  interpretation  of  Jesus’  words. 
But  we  shall  also  not  get  along  without  the  other  aspect, 
according  to  which  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  depended 
upon  definite  and  catastrophic  events.  But  if  Jesus  re¬ 
garded  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  as  dependent  upon  a 
definite  event,  then  His  teaching  was  similar  at  the  de¬ 
cisive  point  to  that  of  the  primitive  Church ;  neither  He 
nor  the  primitive  Church  enunciated  merely  general  and 
permanent  principles  of  religion ;  both  of  them,  on  the 
contrary,  made  the  message  depend  upon  something  that 
happened.  Only,  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus  the  happening 
was  represented  as  being  still  in  the  future,  while  in 
that  of  the  Jerusalem  Church  the  first  act  of  it  at  least 
lay  already  in  the  past.  Jesus  proclaimed  the  event  as 
coming ;  the  disciples  proclaimed  part  of  it  at  least  as 
already  past;  but  the  important  thing  is  that  both  Jesus 
and  the  disciples  did  proclaim  an  event.  Jesus  was  cer¬ 
tainly  not  a  mere  enunciator  of  permanent  truths,  like  th£ 
modern  liberal  preacher ;  on  the  contrary  He  was 


32  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

conscious  of  standing  at  the  turning-point  of  the  ages, 
when  what  had  never  been  was  now  to  come  to  be. 

But  Jesus  announced  not  only  an  event;  He  announced 
also  the  meaning  of  the  event.  It  is  natural,  indeed,  that 
the  full  meaning  could  be  made  clear  only  after  the  event 
had  taken  place.  If  Jesus  really  came,  then,  to  announce, 
and  to  bring  about,  an  event,  the  disciples  were  not  de¬ 
parting  from  His  purpose,  if  they  set  forth  the  meaning 
of  the  event  more  fully  than  it  could  be  set  forth  during 
the  preliminary  period  constituted  by  the  earthly  ministry 
of  their  Master.  But  Jesus  Himself,  though  by  way  of 
prophecy,  did  set  forth' the  meaning  of  the  great  happen¬ 
ing  that  was  to  be  at  the  basis  of  the  new  era. 

Certainly  He  did  so,  and  grandly,  if  the  words  attrib¬ 
uted  to  Him  in  all  of  the  Gospels  are  really  His.  But 
even  if  the  Fourth  Gospel  be  rejected,  and  even  if  the 
most  radical  criticism  be  applied  to  the  other  three,  it 
will  still  be  impossible  to  get  rid  of  this  element  in  Jesus’ 
teaching.  The  significant  words  attributed  to  Jesus  at 
the  Last  Supper  with  regard  to  His  approaching  death, 
and  the  utterance  of  Jesus  in  Mk.  x.  45  (“The  Son  of 
Man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto  but  to  minister,  and 
to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many”),  have  indeed  been 
the  subject  of  vigorous  debate.  It  is  difficult  to  accept 
such  words  as  authentic  and  yet  maintain  the  modern 
view  of  Jesus  at  all.  Yet  it  is  also  difficult  to  get  rid  of 
them  on  any  critical  theory.  What  we  are  now  concerned 
with,  however,  is  something  more  general  than  the  authen¬ 
ticity  even  of  these  precious  words.  What  we  are  now 
concerned  to  observe  is  that  Jesus  certainly  did  not  con¬ 
tent  Himself  with  the  enunciation  of  permanent  moral 
principles ;  He  certainly  did  announce  an  approaching 
event ;  and  He  certainly  did  not  announce  the  event  with¬ 
out  giving  some  account  of  its  meaning.  But  when  He 


Doctrine 


83 


gave  an  account  of  the  meaning  of  the  event,  no  matter 
how  brief  that  account  may  have  been,  He  was  overstep¬ 
ping  the  line  that  separates  an  undogmatic  religion,  or 
even  a  dogmatic  religion  that  teaches  only  eternal  prin¬ 
ciples,  from  one  that  is  rooted  in  the  significance  of  defi¬ 
nite  historical  facts ;  He  was  placing  a  great  gulf  between 
Himself  and  the  philosophic  modern  liberalism  which  to¬ 
day  incorrectly  bears  His  name. 

In  another  way  also  the  teaching  of  Jesus  was  rooted 
in  doctrine.  It  was  rooted  in  doctrine  because  it  depended 
upon  a  stupendous  presentation  of  Jesus’  own  Person. 
The  assertion  is  often  made,  indeed,  that  Jesus  kept  His 
own  Person  out  of  His  gospel,  and  came  forward  merely 
as  the  supreme  prophet  of  God.  That  assertion  lies  at 
the  very  root  of  the  modern  liberal  conception  of  the  life 
of  Christ.  But  common  as  it  is,  it  is  radically  false.  And 
it  is  interesting  to  observe  how  the  liberal  historians 
themselves,  so  soon  as  they  begin  to  deal  seriously  with 
the  sources,  are  obliged  to  admit  that  the  real  Jesus  was 
not  all  that  they  could  have  liked  Jesus  to  be.  A  Houston 
Stewart  Chamberlain,1  indeed,  can  construct  a  Jesus  who 
was  the  advocate  of  a  pure,  “formless,”  non-doctrinal 
religion;  but  trained  historians,  despite  their  own  desires, 
are  obliged  to  admit  that  there  was  an  element  in  the  real 
Jesus  which  refuses  to  be  pressed  into  any  such  mould. 
There  is  to  the  liberal  historians,  as  Heitmiiller  has  sig¬ 
nificantly  said,  “something  almost  uncanny”  about  Jesus.2 

This  “uncanny”  element  in  Jesus  is  found  in  His  Mes¬ 
sianic  consciousness.  The  strange  fact  is  that  this  pure 
teacher  of  righteousness  appealed  to  by  modern  liberal¬ 
ism,  this  classical  exponent  of  the  non-doctrinal  religion 

1 Mensch  und  Oott,  1921.  Compare  the  review  in  Princeton  Theo¬ 
logical  Review,  xx,  1922,  pp.  327-329. 

2  Heitmiiller,  Jesus,  1913,  p.  71.  See  The  Origin  of  Paul’s  Religion, 
1921,  p.  157. 


34  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

which  is  supposed  to  underlie  all  the  historical  religions  as 
the  irreducible  truth  remaining  after  the  doctrinal  accre¬ 
tions  have  been  removed — the  strange  fact  is  that  this 
supreme  revealer  of  eternal  truth  supposed  that  He  was 
to  be  the  chief  actor  in  a  world  catastrophe  and  was  to 
sit  in  judgment  upon  the  whole  earth.  Such  is  the  stu7 
pendous  form  in  which  Jesus  applied  to  Himself  the 
category  of  Messiahship. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  how  modern  men  have  dealt 
with  the  Messianic  consciousness  of  Jesus.  Some,  like 
Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  have  practically  ignored  it.  Without 
discussing  the  question  whether  it  be  historical  or  not  they 
have  practically  treated  it  as  though  it  did  not  exist,  and 
have  not  allowed  it  to  disturb  them  at  all  in  their  con¬ 
struction  of  the  sage  of  Nazareth.  The  Jesus  thus  re¬ 
constructed  may  be  useful  as  investing  modern  programs 
with  the  sanctity  of  His  hallowed  name;  Mr.  Wells  may 
find  it  edifying  to  associate  Jesus  with  Confucius  in  a 
brotherhood  of  beneficent  vagueness.  But  what  ought  to 
be  clearly  understood  is  that  such  a  Jesus  has  nothing  to 
do  with  history.  He  is  a  purely  imaginary  figure,  a  sym¬ 
bol  and  not  a  fact. 

Others,  more  seriously,  have  recognized  the  existence 
of  the  problem,  but  have  sought  to  avoid  it  by  denying 
that  Jesus  ever  thought  that  He  was  the  Messiah,  and  by 
supporting  their  denial,  not  by  mere  assertions,  but  by 
a  critical  examination  of  the  sources.  Such  was  the 
effort,  for  example,  of  W.  Wrede,1  and  a  brilliant  effort 
it  was.  But  it  has  resulted  in  failure.  The  Messianic 
consciousness  of  Jesus  is  not  merely  rooted  in  the  sources 
considered  as  documents,  but  it  lies  at  the  very  basis  of 
the  whole  edifice  of  the  Church.  If,  as  J.  Weiss  has 
pertinently  said,  the  disciples  before  the  crucifixion  had 

1  Das  Messiasgeheimnis  in  den  Evangelien,  1901. 


Doctrine 


35 


merely  been  told  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  was  coming,  if 
Jesus  had  really  kept  altogether  in  the  background  His 
own  part  in  the  Kingdom,  then  why  when  despair  finally 
gave  place  to  joy  did  the  disciples  not  merely  say,  “De¬ 
spite  Jesus*  death,  the  Kingdom  that  He  foretold  will 
truly  come”?  Why  did  they  say  rather,  “Despite  His 
death,  He  is  the  Messiah”?  1  From  no  point  of  view, 
then,  can  the  fact  be  denied  that  Jesus  did  claim  to  be  the 
Messiah — neither  from  the  point  of  view  of  acceptance  of 
the  Gospel  witness  as  a  whole,  nor  from  the  point  of  view 
of  modern  naturalism. 

And  when  the  Gospel  account  of  Jesus  is  considered 
closely,  it  is  found  to  involve  the  Messianic  consciousness 
throughout.  Even  those  parts  of  the  Gospels  which  have 
been  regarded  as  most  purely  ethical  are  found  to  be  based 
altogether  upon  Jesus’  lofty  claims.  The  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  is  a  striking  example.  It  is  the  fashion  now  to 
place  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  in  contrast  with  the  rest 
of  the  New  Testament.  “We  will  have  nothing  to  do  with 
theology,”  men  say  in  effect,  “we  will  have  nothing  to  do 
with  miracles,  with  atonement,  or  with  heaven  or  with  hell. 
For  us  the  Golden  Rule  is  a  sufficient  guide  of  life;  in  the 
simple  principles  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  we  discover 
a  solution  of  all  the  problems  of  society.”  It  is  indeed 
rather  strange  that  men  can  speak  in  this  way.  Certainly 
it  is  rather  derogatory  to  Jesus  to  assert  that  never  ex¬ 
cept  in  one  brief  part  of  His  recorded  words  did  He  say 
anything  that  is  worth  while.  But  even  in  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  there  is  far  more  than  some  men  suppose.  Men 
say  that  it  contains  no  theology;  in  reality  it  contains 
theology  of  the  most  stupendous  kind.  In  particular,  it 

*J.  Weiss,  “Das  Problem  der  Entstehung  des  Christentums,”  in 
Archiv  fur  Religionswis sens chaft,  xvi,  1913,  p.  456.  See  The  Origin 
of  Paul’s  Religion,  1921,  p.  156. 


36  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

contains  the  loftiest  possible  presentation  of  Jesus’  own 
Person.  That  presentation  appears  in  the  strange  note 
of  authority  which  pervades  the  whole  discourse ;  it  ap¬ 
pears  in  the  recurrent  words,  “But  I  say  unto  you.” 
Jesus  plainly  puts  His  own  words  on  an  equality  with 
what  He  certainly  regarded  as  the  divine  words  of  Scrip¬ 
ture;  He  claimed  the  right  to  legislate  for  the  Kingdom 
of  God.  Let  it  not  be  objected  that  this  note  of  authority 
involves  merely  a  prophetic  consciousness  in  Jesus,  a  mere 
right  to  speak  in  God’s  name  as  God’s  Spirit  might  lead. 
For  what  prophet  ever  spoke  in  this  way?  The  prophets 
said,  “Thus  saith  the  Lord,”  but  Jesus  said,  “I  say.”  We 
have  no  mere  prophet  here,  no  mere  humble  exponent  of 
the  will  of  God;  but  a  stupendous  Person  speaking  in  a 
manner  which  for  any  other  person  would  be  abominable 
and  absurd.  The  same  thing  appears  in  the  passage 
Matt.  vii.  21-23:  “Not  everyone  who  says  to  me  Lord, 
Lord,  shall  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  but  he  who 
does  the  will  of  my  Father  who  is  in  heaven.  Many  shall 
say  to  me  in  that  day:  Lord,  Lord,  have  we  not  prophe¬ 
sied  in  thy  name,  and  in  thy  name  cast  out  demons,  and  in 
thy  name  done  many  mighty  works?  And  then  I  shall 
confess  to  them,  ‘I  never  knew  you ;  depart  from  me,  ye 
that  work  lawlessness.’  ”  This  passage  is  in  some  respects 
a  favorite  with  modern  liberal  teachers ;  for  it  is  inter¬ 
preted — falsely,  it  is  true,  yet  plausibly — as  meaning  that 
all  that  a  man  needs  to  attain  standing  with  God  is  an 
approximately  right  performance  of  his  duties  to  his  fel¬ 
low-men,  and  not  any  assent  to  a  creed  or  even  any  direct 
relation  to  Jesus.  But  have  those  who  quote  the  passage 
so  triumphantly  in  this  way  ever  stopped  to  reflect  upon 
the  other  side  of  the  picture — upon  the  stupendous  fact 
that  in  this  same  passage  the  eternal  destinies  of  men  are 
made  dependent  upon  the  word  of  Jesus?  Jesus  here  rep- 


Doctrine 


37 


resents  Himself  as  seated  on  the  judgment-seat  of  all  the 
earth,  separating  whom  He  will  forever  from  the  bliss  that 
is  involved  in  being  present  with  Him.  Could  anything  be 
further  removed  than  such  a  Jesus  from  the  humble 
teacher  of  righteousness  appealed  to  by  modern  liberal¬ 
ism?  Clearly  it  is  impossible  to  escape  from  theology, 
even  in  the  chosen  precincts  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 
A  stupeLdous  theology,  with  Jesus’  own  Person  at  the 
centre  of  it,  is  the  presupposition  of  the  whole  teaching. 

But  may  not  that  theology  still  be  removed?  May  we 
not  get  rid  of  the  bizarre,  theological  element  which  has 
intruded  itself  even  into  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and 
content  ourselves  merely  with  the  ethical  portion  of  the 
discourse?  The  question,  from  the  point  of  view  of  mod¬ 
ern  liberalism,  is  natural.  But  it  must  be  answered  with 
an  emphatic  negative.  For  the  fact  is  that  the  ethic  of 
the  discourse,  taken  by  itself,  will  not  work  at  all.  The 
Golden  Rule  furnishes  an  example.  “Do  unto  others  as 
you  would  have  others  do  unto  you” — is  that  rule  a  rule 
of  universal  application,  will  it  really  solve  all  the  prob¬ 
lems  of  society?  A  little  experience  shows  that  such  is 
not  the  case.  Help  a  drunkard  to  get  rid  of  his  evil  habit, 
and  you  will  soon  come  to  distrust  the  modern  interpreta¬ 
tion  of  the  Golden  Rule.  The  trouble  is  that  the  drunk¬ 
ard’s  companions  apply  the  rule  only  too  well;  they  do 
unto  him  exactly  what  they  would  have  him  do  unto  them 
— by  buying  him  a  drink.  The  Golden  Rule  becomes  a 
powerful  obstacle  in  the  way  of  moral  advance.  But  the 
trouble  does  not  lie  in  the  rule  itself ;  it  lies  in  the  modern 
interpretation  of  the  rule.  The  error  consists  in  suppos¬ 
ing  that  the  Golden  Rule,  with  the  rest  of  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  is  addressed  to  the  whole  world.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  the  whole  discourse  is  expressly  addressed  to 
Jesus’  disciples;  and  from  them  the  great  world  outside  is 


38  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

distinguished  in  the  plainest  possible  way.  The  persons 
to  whom  the  Golden  Rule  is  addressed  are  persons  in  whom 
a  great  change  has  been  wrought — a  change  which  fits 
them  for  entrance  into  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Such  per¬ 
sons  have  no  impure  desires ;  they,  and  they  only,  can 
safely  do  unto  others  as  they  would  have  others  do  unto 

them,  for  the  things  that  they  would  have  others  do  unto 
them  are  high  and  pure. 

So  it  is  with  the  whole  of  the  discourse.  The  new  law  of 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  in  itself,  can  only  produce 
despair.  Strange  indeed  is  the  complacency  with  which 
modern  men  can  say  that  the  Golden  Rule  and  the  high 
ethical  principles  of  Jesus  are  all  that  they  need.  In 
reality,  if  the  requirements  for  entrance  into  the  Kingdom 
of  God  are  what  Jesus  declares  them  to  be,  we  are  all 
undone;  we  have  not  even  attained  to  the  external  right¬ 
eousness  of  the  scribes  and  Pharisees,  and  how  shall  we 
attain  to  that  righteousness  of  the  heart  which  Jesus 
demands  ?  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  rightly  interpreted, 

then,  makes  man  a  seeker  after  some  divine  means  of  sal¬ 
vation  by  which  entrance  into  the  Kingdom  can  be  ob¬ 
tained.  Even  Moses  was  too  high  for  us ;  but  before  this 
higher  law  of  Jesus  who  shall  stand  without  being  con¬ 
demned?  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  like  all  the  rest  of 
the  New  Testament,  really  leads  a  man  straight  to  the 
foot  of  the  Cross. 

Even  the  disciples,  to  whom  the  teaching  of  Jesus  was 
first  addressed,  knew  well  that  they  needed  more  than 
guidance  in  the  way  that  they  should  go.  It  is  only  a 
superficial  reading  of  the  Gospels  that  can  find  in  the  rela¬ 
tion  which  the  disciples  sustained  to  Jesus  a  mere  relation 
of  pupil  to  Master.  When  Jesus  said,  “Come  unto  me,  all 
ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you 
rest,”  he  was  speaking  not  as  a  philosopher  calling  pupils 


Doctrine 


39 


to  his  school ;  but  as  One  who  was  in  possession  of  rich 
stores  of  divine  grace.  And  this  much  at  least  the  dis¬ 
ciples  knew.  They  knew  well  in  their  heart  of  hearts  that 
they  had  no  right  to  stand  in  the  Kingdom;  they  knew 
that  only  Jesus  could  win  them  entrance  there.  They  did 
not  yet  know  fully  how  Jesus  could  make  them  children  of 
God ;  but  they  did  know  that  He  could  do  it  and  He 
alone.  And  in  that  trust  all  the  theology  of  the  great 
Christian  creeds  was  in  expectation  contained. 

At  this  point,  an  objection  may  arise.  May  we  not — 
the  modern  liberal  will  say— may  we  not  now  return  to 
that  simple  trust  of  the  disciples?  May  we  not  cease  to 
ask  how  Jesus  saves ;  may  we  not  simply  leave  the  way  to 
Him?  What  need  is  there,  then,  of  defining  “effectual 
calling,”  what  need  of  enumerating  “justification,  adop¬ 
tion  and  sanctification  and  the  several  benefits  which  in 
this  life  do  either  accompany  or  flow  from  them”?  What 
need  even  of  rehearsing  the  steps  in  the  saving  work  of 
Christ  as  they  were  rehearsed  by  the  Jerusalem  Church; 
what  need  of  saying  that  “Christ  died  for  our  sins  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  Scriptures,  that  he  was  buried,  that  he  has  been 
raised  on  the  third  day  according  to  the  Scriptures”? 
Should  not  our  trust  be  in  a  Person  rather  than  in  a  mes¬ 
sage;  in  Jesus,  rather  than  in  what  Jesus  did;  in  Jesus’ 
character  rather  than  in  Jesus’  death? 

Plausible  words  these  are — plausible,  and  pitifully  vain. 
Can  we  really  return  to  Galilee ;  are  we  really  in  the  same 
situation  as  those  who  came  to  Jesus  when  He  was  on 
earth?  Can  we  hear  Him  say  to  us,  “Thy  sins  are  for¬ 
given  thee”?  These  are  serious  questions,  and  they  can¬ 
not  possibly  be  ignored.  The  plain  fact  is  that  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  died  these  nineteen  hundred  years  ago.  It  was 
possible  for  the  men  of  Galilee  in  the  first  century  to  trust 
Him;  for  to  them  He  extended  His  aid.  For  them,  life’s 


40  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

problem  was  easy.  They  needed  only  to  push  in  through 
the  crowd  or  be  lowered  through  some  Capernaum  roof, 
and  the  long  search  was  over.  But  we  are  separated  by 
nineteen  centuries  from  the  One  who  alone  could  give  us 
aid.  How  can  we  bridge  the  gulf  of  time  that  separates 
us  from  Jesus  ? 

Some  persons  would  bridge  the  gulf  by  the  mere  use  of 
the  historical  imagination.  “Jesus  is  not  dead,”  we  are 
told,  “but  lives  on  through  His  recorded  words  and  deeds ; 
we  do  not  need  even  to  believe  it  all;  even  a  part  is  suf¬ 
ficient;  the  wonderful,  personality  of  Jesus  shines  out  clear 
from  the  Gospel  story.  Jesus,  in  other  words,  may  still 
be  known ;  let  us  simply — -without  theology,  without  con¬ 
troversy,  without  inquiry  about  miracles — abandon  our¬ 
selves  to  His  spell,  and  He  will  heal  us.” 

There  is  a  certain  plausibility  about  that.  It  may 
readily  be  admitted  that  Jesus  lives  on  in  the  Gospel 
record.  In  that  narrative  we  see  not  merely  a  lifeless  pic¬ 
ture,  but  receive  the  impression  of  a  living  Person.  We 
can  still,  as  we  read,  share  the  astonishment  of  those  who 
listened  to  the  new  teaching  in  the  synagogue  at  Caper¬ 
naum.  We  can  sympathize  with  the  faith  and  devotion 
of  the  little  band  of  disciples  who  would  not  leave  Him 
when  others  were  offended  at  the  hard  saying.  We  feel  a 
sympathetic  thrill  of  joy  at  the  blessed  relief  which  was 
given  to  those  who  were  ill  in  body  and  in  mind.  We  can 
appreciate  the  wonderful  love  and  compassion  of  Him 
who  was  sent  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was  lost.  A 
wonderful  story  it  is  indeed — not  dead,  but  pulsating  with 
life  at  every  turn. 

Certainly  the  Jesus  of  the  Gospels  is  a  real,  a  living 
Person.  But  that  is  not  the  only  question.  We  are  going 
forward  far  too  fast.  Jesus  lives  in  the  Gospels — so  much 
may  freely  be  admitted — but  we  of  the  twentieth  century, 


Doctrine 


41 


how  may  we  come  into  vital  relation  to  Him?  He  died 
nineteen  hundred  years  ago.  The  life  which  He  now  lives 
in  the  Gospels  is  simply  the  old  life  lived  over  and  over 
again.  And  in  that  life  we  have  no  place;  in  that  life  we 
are  spectators,  not  actors.  The  life  which  Jesus  lives  in 
the  Gospels  is  after  all  for  us  but  the  spurious  life  of  the 
stage.  We  sit  silent  in  the  playhouse  and  watch  the 
absorbing  Gospel  drama  of  forgiveness  and  healing  and 
love  and  courage  and  high  endeavor ;  in  wrapt  attention 
we  follow  the  fortunes  of  those  who  came  to  Jesus  laboring 
and  heavy  laden  and  found  rest.  For  a  time  our  own 
troubles  are  forgotten.  But  suddenly  the  curtain  falls, 
with  the  closing  of  the  book,  and  out  we  go  again  into  the 
cold  humdrum  of  our  own  lives.  Gone  are  the  warmth  and 
gladness  of  an  ideal  world,  and  “in  their  stead  a  sense  of 
real  things  comes  doubly  strong.”  We  are  no  longer  liv¬ 
ing  over  again  the  lives  of  Peter  and  James  and  John. 
Alas,  we  are  living  our  own  lives  once  more,  with  our  own 
problems  and  our  own  misery  and  our  own  sin.  And  still 
we  are  seeking  our  own  Saviour. 

Let  us  not  deceive  ourselves.  A  Jewish  teacher  of  the 
first  century  can  never  satisfy  the  longing  of  our  souls. 
Clothe  Him  with  all  the  art  of  modern  research,  throw 
upon  Him  the  warm,  deceptive  calcium-light  of  modern 
sentimentality ;  and  despite  it  all  common  sense  will  come 
to  its  rights  again,  and  for  our  brief  hour  of  self-decep¬ 
tion — as  though  we  had  been  with  Jesus — will  wreak  upon 
us  the  revenge  of  hopeless  disillusionment. 

But,  says  the  modern  preacher,  are  we  not,  in  being 
satisfied  with  the  “historical”  Jesus,  the  great  teacher  who 
proclaimed  the  Kingdom  of  God,  merely  restoring  the 
simplicity  of  the  primitive  gospel?  No,  we  answer,  you 
are  not,  but,  temporally  at  least,  you  are  not  so  very  far 
wrong.  You  are  really  returning  to  a  very  primitive 


42  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

stage  in  the  life  of  the  Church.  Only,  that  stage  is  not 
the  Galilean  springtime.  For  in  Galilee  men  had  a  living 
Saviour.  There  was  one  time  and  one  time  only  when  the 
disciples  lived,  like  you,  merely  on  the  memory  of  Jesus. 
When  was  it?  It  was  a  gloomy,  desperate  time.  It  was 
the  three  sad  days  after  the  crucifixion.  Then  and  then 
only  did  Jesus*  disciples  regard  Him  merely  as  a  blessed 
memory.  “We  trusted,”  they  said,  “that  it  had  been  he 
which  should  have  redeemed  Israel.”  “We  trusted” — but 
now  our  trust  is  gone.  Shall  we  remain,  with  modern  lib¬ 
eralism,  forever  in  the  gloom  of  those  sad  days?  Or  shall 
we  pass  out  from  it  to  the  warmth  and  joy  of  Pentecost? 

Certainly  we  shall  remain  forever  in  the  gloom  if  we 
attend  merely  to  the  character  of  Jesus  and  neglect  the 
thing  that  He  has  done,  if  we  try  to  attend  to  the  Person 
and  neglect  the  message.  We  may  have  joy  for  sadness 
and  power  for  weakness ;  but  not  by  easy  half-way  meas¬ 
ures,  not  by  avoidance  of  controversy,  not  by  trying  to 
hold  on  to  Jesus  and  yet  reject  the  gospel.  What  was  it1 
that  within  a  few  days  transformed  a  band  of  mourners 
into  the  spiritual  conquerors  of  the  world?  It  was  not 
the  memory  of  Jesus’  life ;  it  was  not  the  inspiration  which 
came  from  past  contact  with  Him.  But  it  was  the  mes¬ 
sage,  “He  is  risen.”  That  message  alone  gave  to  the  dis¬ 
ciples  a  living  Saviour ;  and  it  alone  can  give  to  us  a  living 
Saviour  to-day.  We  shall  never  have  vital  contact  with 
Jesus  if  we  attend  to  His  person  and  neglect  the  message; 
for  it  is  the  message  which  makes  Him  ours. 

But  the  Christian  message  contains  more  than  the  fact 
of  the  resurrection.1  It  is  not  enough  to  know  that  Jesus 
is  alive;  it  is  not  enough  to  know  that  a  wonderful  Person 

1  For  what  follows  compare  A  Rapid  Survey  of  the  History  and 
Literature  of  New  Testament  Times,  published  by  the  Presbyterian 
Board  of  Publication  and  Sabbath  School  Work,  Teacher’s  Manual, 
pp.  44f. 


Doctrine 


43 


lived  in  the  first  century  of  the  Christian  era  and  that  that 
Person  still  lives,  somewhere  and  somehow,  to-day.  Jesus 
lives,  and  that  is  well ;  but  what  good  is  it  to  us?  We  are 
like  the  inhabitants  of  far-off  Syria  or  Phoenicia  in  the 
days  of  His  flesh.  There  is  a  wonderful  Person  who  can 
heal  every  ill  of  body  and  mind.  But,  alas,  we  are  not 
with  Him,  and  the  way  is  far.  How  shall  we  come  into 
His  presence?  How  shall  contact  be  established  between 
us  and  Him?  For  the  people  of  ancient  Galilee  contact 
was  established  by  a  touch  of  Jesus’  hand  or  a  word  from 
His  lips.  But  for  us  the  problem  is  not  so  easy.  We 
cannot  find  Him  by  the  lake  shore  or  in  crowded  houses ; 
we  cannot  be  lowered  into  any  room  where  He  sits  amid 
scribes  and  Pharisees.  If  we  employ  only  our  own  meth¬ 
ods  of  search,  we  shall  find  ourselves  on  a  fruitless  pil¬ 
grimage.  Surely  we  need  guidance,  if  wTe  are  to  find  our 
Saviour. 

And  in  the  New  Testament  we  find  guidance  full  and 
free — guidance  so  complete  as  to  remove  all  doubt,  yet 
so  simple  that  a  child  can  understand.  Contact  with 
Jesus  according  to  the  New  Testament  is  established  by 
what  Jesus  does,  not  for  others,  but  for  us.  The  account 
of  what  Jesus  did  for  others  is  indeed  necessary.  By 
reading  how  He  went  about  doing  good,  how  He  healed 
the  sick  and  raised  the  dead  and  forgave  sins,  we  learn 
that  He  is  a  Person  who  is  worthy  of  trust.  But  such 
knowledge  is  to  the  Christian  man  not  an  end  in  itself, 
but  a  means  to  an  end.  It  is  not  enough  to  know  that 
Jesus  is  a  Person  worthy  of  trust;  it  is  also  necessary  to 
know  that  He  is  willing  to  have  us  trust  Him.  It  is  not 
enough  that  He  saved  others ;  we  need  to  know  also  that 
He  has  saved  us. 

That  knowledge  is  given  in  the  story  of  the  Cross.  For 
us  Jesus  does  not  merely  place  His  fingers  in  the  ears  and 


44  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

say,  “Be  opened” ;  for  us  He  does  not  merely  say  “Arise 
and  walk.”  For  us  He  has  done  a  greater  thing — for  us 
He  died.  Our  dreadful  guilt,  the  condemnation  of  God’s 
law — it  was  wiped  out  by  an  act  of  grace.  That  is  the 
message  which  brings  Jesus  near  to  us,  and  makes  Him  not 
merely  the  Saviour  of  the  men  of  Galilee  long  ago,  but  the 
Saviour  of  you  and  me. 

It  is  vain,  then,  to  speak  of  reposing  trust  in  the  Person 
without  believing  the  message.  For  trust  involves  a  per¬ 
sonal  relation  between  the  one  who  trusts  and  him  in  whom 

the  trust  is  reposed.  -And  in  this  case  the  personal  rela¬ 
tion  is  set  up  by  the  blessed  theology  of  the  Cross.  With¬ 
out  the  eighth  chapter  of  Romans,  the  mere  story  of  the 
earthly  life  of  Jesus  would  be  remote  and  dead;  for  it  is 
through  the  eighth  chapter  of  Romans,  or  the  message 
which  that  chapter  contains,  that  Jesus  becomes  our 
Saviour  to-day. 

The  truth  is  that  when  men  speak  of  trust  in  Jesus’ 
Person,  as  being  possible  without  acceptance  of  the  mes¬ 
sage  of  His  death  and  resurrection,  they  do  not  really 
mean  trust  at  all.  What  they  designate  as  trust  is  really 
admiration  or  reverence.  They  reverence  Jesus  as  the 
supreme  Person  of  all  history  and  the  supreme  revealer  of 
God.  But  trust  can  come  only  when  the  supreme  Person 
extends  His  saving  power  to  us.  “He  wTent  about  doing 
good,”  “He  spake  words  such  as  never  man  spake,”  “He  is 
the  express  image  of  God” — that  is  reverence ;  “He  loved 
me  and  gave  Himself  for  me” — that  is  faith. 

But  the  words  “He  loved  me  and  gave  Himself  for  me” 
are  in  historical  form;  they  constitute  an  account  of 
something  that  happened.  And  they  add  to  the  fact  the 
meaning  of  the  fact ;  they  contain  in  essence  the  whole 
profound  theology  of  redemption  through  the  blood  of 
Christ.  Christian  doctrine  lies  at  the  very  roots  of  faith. 


Doctrine 


45 


It  must  be  admitted,  then,  that  if  we  are  to  have  a  non- 
doctrinal  religion,  or  a  doctrinal  religion  founded  merely 
on  general  truth,  we  must  give  up  not  only  Paul,  not  only 
the  primitive  Jerusalem  Church,  but  also  Jesus  Himself. 
But  what  is  meant  by  doctrine?  It  has  been  interpreted 
here  as  meaning  any  presentation  of  the  facts  which  lie  at 
the  basis  of  the  Christian  religion  with  the  true  meaning  of 
the  facts.  But  is  that  the  only  sense  of  the  word?  May 
the  word  not  also  be  taken  in  a  narrower  sense?  May  it 
not  also  mean  a  systematic  and  minute  and  one-sidedly 
scientific  presentation  of  the  facts?  And  if  the  word  is 
taken  in  this  narrower  sense,  may  not  the  modern  objec¬ 
tion  to  doctrine  involve  merely  an  objection  to  the  exces¬ 
sive  subtlety  of  controversial  theology,  and  not  at  all  an 
objection  to  the  glowing  words  of  the  New  Testament,  an 
objection  to  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  and 
not  at  all  to  the  first  century?  Undoubtedly  the  word  is 
so  taken  by  many  occupants  of  the  pews  when  they  listen 
to  the  modern  exaltation  of  “life”  at  the  expense  of  “doc¬ 
trine.”  The  pious  hearer  labors  under  the  impression 
that  he  is  merely  being  asked  to  return  to  the  simplicity 
of  the  New  Testament,  instead  of  attending  to  the  sub¬ 
tleties  of  the  theologians.  Since  it  has  never  occurred  to 
him  to  attend  to  the  subtleties  of  the  theologians,  he  has 
that  comfortable  feeling  which  always  comes  to  the 
churchgoer  when  some  one  else’s  sins  are  being  attacked. 
It  is  no  wonder  that  the  modern  invectives  against  doc¬ 
trine  constitute  a  popular  type  of  preaching.  At  any 
rate,  an  attack  upon  Calvin  or  Turrettin  or  the  West¬ 
minster  divines  does  not  seem  to  the  modern  churchgoer 
to  be  a  very  dangerous  thing.  In  point  of  fact,  however, 
the  attack  upon  doctrine  is  not  nearly  so  innocent  a  mat¬ 
ter  as  our  simple  churchgoer  supposes ;  for  the  things 
objected  to  in  the  theology  of  the  Church  are  also  at 


46  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

the  very  heart  of  the  New  Testament.  Ultimately  the 
attack  is  not  against  the  seventeenth  century,  but  against 
the  Bible  and  against  Jesus  Himself. 

Even  if  it  were  an  attack  not  upon  the  Bible  but  only 
upon  the  great  historic  presentations  of  Biblical  teaching, 
it  would  still  be  unfortunate.  If  the  Church  were  led  to 
wipe  out  of  existence  all  products  of  the  thinking  of  nine¬ 
teen  Christian  centuries  and  start  fresh,  the  loss,  even  if 
the  Bible  were  retained,  would  be  immense.  When  it  is 
once  admitted  that  a  body  of  facts  lies  at  the  basis  of  the 
Christian  religion,  the -efforts  which  past  generations  have 
made  toward  the  classification  of  the  facts  will  have  to  be 
treated  with  respect.  In  no  branch  of  science  would  there 
be  any  real  advance  if  every  generation  started  fresh  with 
no  dependence  upon  what  past  generations  have  achieved. 
Yet  in  theology,  vituperation  of  the  past  seems  to  be 
thought  essential  to  progress.  And  upon  what  base  slan¬ 
ders  the  vituperation  is  based !  After  listening  to  modern 
tirades  against  the  great  creeds  of  the  Church,  one 
receives  rather  a  shock  when  one  turns  to  the  Westminster 
Confession,  for  example,  or  to  that  tenderest  and  most 
theological  of  books,  the  “Pilgrim’s  Progress”  of  John 
Bunyan,  and  discovers  that  in  doing  so  one  has  turned 
from  shallow  modern  phrases  to  a  “dead  orthodoxy”  that 
is  pulsating  with  life  in  every  word.  In  such  orthodoxy 
there  is  life  enough  to  set  the  whole  world  aglow  with 
Christian  love. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  in  the  modern  vitupera¬ 
tion  of  “doctrine,”  it  is  not  merely  the  great  theologians 
or  the  great  creeds  that  are  being  attacked,  but  the  New 
Testament  and  our  Lord  Himself.  In  rejecting  doctrine, 
the  liberal  preacher  is  rejecting  the  simple  words  of  Paul, 
“Who  loved  me  and  gave  Himself  for  me,”  just  as  much  as 
the  liomoousion  of  the  Nicene  Creed.  For  the  word  “doc- 


Doctrine 


47 


trine”  is  really  used  not  in  its  narrowest,  but  in  its  broad¬ 
est  sense.  The  liberal  preacher  is  really  rejecting  the 
whole  basis  of  Christianity,  which  is  a  religion  founded 
not  on  aspirations,  but  on  facts.  Here  is  found  the  most 
fundamental  difference  between  liberalism  and  Christian¬ 
ity — liberalism  is  altogether  in  the  imperative  mood, 
while  Christianity  begins  with  a  triumphant  indicative ; 
liberalism  appeals  to  man’s  will,  while  Christianity 
announces,  first,  a  gracious  act  of  God. 

In  maintaining  the  doctrinal  basis  of  Christianity,  we 
are  particularly  anxious  not  to  be  misunderstood.  There 
are  certain  things  that  we  do  not  mean. 

In  the  first  place,  we  do  not  mean  that  if  doctrine  is 
sound  it  makes  no  difference  about  life.  On  the  contrary, 
it  makes  all  the  difference  in  the  world.  From  the  begin¬ 
ning,  Christianity  was  certainly  a  way  of  life ;  the  salva¬ 
tion  that  it  offered  was  a  salvation  from  sin,  and  salvation 
from  sin  appeared  not  merely  in  a  blessed  hope  but  also  in 
an  immediate  moral  change.  The  early  Christians,  to  the 
astonishment  of  their  neighbors,  lived  a  strange  new  kind 
of  life — a  life  of  honesty,  of  purity  and  of  unselfishness. 
And  from  the  Christian  community  all  other  types  of  life 
were  excluded  in  the  strictest  way.  From  the  beginning 
Christianity  was  certainly  a  life. 

But  how  was  the  life  produced?  It  might  conceivably 
have  been  produced  by  exhortation.  That  method  had 
often  been  tried  in  the  ancient  world;  in  the  Flellenistic 
age  there  were  many  wandering  preachers  who  told  men 
how  they  ought  to  live.  But  such  exhortation  proved  to 
be  powerless.  Although  the  ideals  of  the  Cynic  and  Stoic 
preachers  were  high,  these  preachers  never  succeeded  in 
transforming  society.  The  strange  thing  about  Chris¬ 
tianity  was  that  it  adopted  an  entirely  different  method. 
It  transformed  the  lives  of  men  not  by  appealing  to  the 


48  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

human  will,  but  by  telling  a  story;  not  by  exhortation, 
but  by  the  narration  of  an  event.  It  is  no  wonder  that 
such  a  method  seemed  strange.  Could  anything  be  more 
impractical  than  the  attempt  to  influence  conduct  by 
rehearsing  events  concerning  the  death  of  a  religious 
teacher?  That  is  what  Paul  called  “the  foolishness  of  the 
message.”  It  seemed  foolish  to  the  ancient  world,  and  it 
seems  foolish  to  liberal  preachers  to-day.  But  the  strange 
thing  is  that  it  works.  The  effects  of  it  appear  even  in 
this  world.  Where  the  most  eloquent  exhortation  fails, 
the  simple  story  of  an  event  succeeds ;  the  lives  of  men  are 
transformed  by  a  piece  of  news. 

It  is  especially  by  such  transformation  of  life,  to-day 
as  always,  that  the  Christian  message  is  commended  to  the 
attention  of  men.  Certainly,  then,  it  does  make  an  enor¬ 
mous  difference  whether  our  lives  be  right.  If  our  doc¬ 
trine  be  true,  and  our  lives  be  wrong,  how  terrible  is  our 
sin !  For  then  we  have  brought  despite  upon  the  truth 
itself.  On  the  other  hand,  however,  it  is  also  very  sad 
when  men  use  the  social  graces  which  God  has  given  them, 
and  the  moral  momentum  of  a  godly  ancestry,  to  commend 
a  message  which  is  false.  Nothing  in  the  world  can  take 
the  place  of  truth. 

In  the  second  place,  we  do  not  mean,  in  insisting  upon 
the  doctrinal  basis  of  Christianity,  that  all  points  of  doc¬ 
trine  are  equally  important.  It  is  perfectly  possible  for 
Christian  fellowship  to  be  maintained  despite  differences 
of  opinion. 

One  such  difference  of  opinion,  which  has  been  attaining 
increasing  prominence  in  recent  years,  concerns  the  order 
of  events  in  connection  with  the  Lord’s  return.  A  large 
number  of  Christian  people  believe  that  when  evil  has 
reached  its  climax  in  the  world,  the  Lord  Jesus  will  return 
to  this  earth  in  bodily  presence  to  bring  about  a  reign  of 


Doctrine 


49 


righteousness  which  will  last  a  thousand  years,  and  that 
only  after  that  period  the  end  of  the  world  will  come. 
That  belief,  in  the  opinion  of  the  present  writer,  is  an 
error,  arrived  at  by  a  false  interpretation  of  the  Word  of 
God;  we  do  not  think  that  the  prophecies  of  the  Bible 
permit  so  definite  a  mapping-out  of  future  events.  The 
Lord  will  come  again,  and  it  will  be  no  mere  “spiritual” 
coming  in  the  modern  sense — so  much  is  clear — but  that 
so  little  will  be  accomplished  by  the  present  dispensation 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  so  much  will  be  left  to  be  accom¬ 
plished  by  the  Lord  in  bodily  presence — such  a  view  we 
cannot  find  to  be  justified  by  the  words  of  Scripture. 
What  is  our  attitude,  then,  with  regard  to  this  debate? 
Certainly  it  cannot  be  an  attitude  of  indifference.  The 
recrudescence  of  “Chiliasm”  or  “premillennialism”  in  the 
modern  Church  causes  us  serious  concern;  it  is  coupled, 
we  think,  with  a  false  method  of  interpreting  Scripture 
which  in  the  long  run  will  be  productive  of  harm.  Yet 
how  great  is  our  agreement  with  those  who  hold  the  pre- 
millennial  view !  They  share  to  the  full  our  reverence  for 
the  authority  of  the  Bible,  and  differ  from  us  only  in  the 
interpretation  of  the  Bible;  they  share  our  ascription  of 
deity  to  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  our  supernaturalistic  con¬ 
ception  both  of  the  entrance  of  Jesus  into  the  world  and 
of  the  consummation  when  He  shall  come  again.  Cer¬ 
tainly,  then,  from  our  point  of  view,  their  error,  serious 
though  it  may  be,  is  not  deadly  error;  and  Christian  fel¬ 
lowship,  with  loyalty  not  only  to  the  Bible  but  to  the 
great  creeds  of  the  Church,  can  still  unite  us  with  them. 
It  is  therefore  highly  misleading  when  modern  liberals  rep¬ 
resent  the  present  issue  in  the  Church,  both  in  the  mission 
field  and  at  home,  as  being  an  issue  between  premillennial- 
ism  and  the  opposite  view.  It  is  really  an  issue  between 
Christianity,  whether  premillennial  or  not,  on  the  one  side, 


50  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

and  a  naturalistic  negation  of  all  Christianity  on  the 
other. 

Another  difference  of  opinion  which  can  subsist  in  the 
midst  of  Christian  fellowship  is  the  difference  of  opinion 
about  the  mode  of  efficacy  of  the  sacraments.  That  differ¬ 
ence  is  indeed  serious,  and  to  deny  its  seriousness  is  a  far 
greater  error  than  to  take  the  wrong  side  in  the  contro¬ 
versy  itself.  It  is  often  said  that  the  divided  condition  of 
Christendom  is  an  evil,  and  so  it  is.  But  the  evil  consists 
in  the  existence  of  the  errors  which  cause  the  divisions  and 
not  at  all  in  the  recognition  of  those  errors  when  once 
they  exist.  It  was  a  great  calamity  when  at  the  “Mar¬ 
burg  Conference”  between  Luther  and  the  representatives 
of  the  Swiss  Reformation,  Luther  wrote  on  the  table  with 
regard  to  the  Lord’s  Supper,  “This  is  my  body,”  and  said 
to  Zwingli  and  Oecolampadius,  “You  have  another  spirit.” 
That  difference  of  opinion  led  to  the  breach  between  the 
Lutheran  and  the  Reformed  branches  of  the  Church,  and 
caused  Protestantism  to  lose  much  of  the  ground  that 
might  otherwise  have  been  gained.  It  was  a  great  calam¬ 
ity  indeed.  But  the  calamity  was  due  to  the  fact  that 
Luther  (as  we  believe)  was  wrong  about  the  Lord’s  Sup¬ 
per;  and  it  would  have  been  a  far  greater  calamity  if 
being  wrong  about  the  Supper  he  had  represented  the 
whole  question  as  a  trifling  affair.  Luther  was  wrong 
about  the  Supper,  but  not  nearly  so  wrong  as  he  would 
have  been  if,  being  wrong,  he  had  said  to  his  opponents : 
“Brethren,  this  matter  is  a  trifle ;  and  it  makes  really  very 
little  difference  what  a  man  thinks  about  the  table  of  the 
Lord.”  Such  indifferentism  would  have  been  far  more 
deadly  than  all  the  divisions  between  the  branches  of  the 
Church.  A  Luther  who  would  have  compromised  with 
regard  to  the  Lord’s  Supper  never  would  have  said  at  the 
Diet  of  Worms,  “Here  I  stand,  I  cannot  do  otherwise, 


Doctrine 


51 


God  help  me,  Amen.”  Indifferentism  about  doctrine 
makes  no  heroes  of  the  faith. 

Still  another  difference  of  opinion  concerns  the  nature 
and  prerogatives  of  the  Christian  ministry.  According 
to  Anglican  doctrine,  the  bishops  are  in  possession  of  an 
authority  which  has  been  handed  down  to  them,  by  suc¬ 
cessive  ordination,  from  the  apostles  of  the  Lord,  and 
without  such  ordination  there  is  no  valid  priesthood. 
Other  churches  deny  this  doctrine  of  “apostolic  succes¬ 
sion,”  and  hold  a  different  view  of  the  ministry.  Here 
again,  the  difference  is  no  trifle,  and  we  have  little  sympa¬ 
thy  with  those  who  in  the  mere  interests  of  Church 
efficiency  try  to  induce  Anglicans  to  let  down  the  barrier 
which  their  principles  have  led  them  to  erect.  But  despite 
the  importance  of  this  difference,  it  does  not  descend  to» 
the  very  roots.  Even  to  the  conscientious  Anglican  him¬ 
self,  though  he  regards  the  members  of  other  bodies  as  in 
schism,  Christian  fellowship  with  individuals  in  those 
other  bodies  is  still  possible ;  and  certainly  those  who 
reject  the  Anglican  view  of  the  ministry  can  regard  the 
Anglican  Church  as  a  genuine  and  very  noble  member  in 
the  body  of  Christ. 

Another  difference  of  opinion  is  that  between  the  Cal- 
vinistic  or  Reformed  theology  and  the  Arminianism  which 
appears  in  the  Methodist  Church.  It  is  difficult  to  see 
how  any  one  who  has  really  studied  the  question  can 
regard  that  difference  as  an  unimportant  matter.  On  the 
contrary,  it  touches  very  closely  some  of  the  profoundest 
things  of  the  Christian  faith.  A  Calvinist  is  constrained 
to  regard  the  Arminian  theology  as  a  serious  impoverish¬ 
ment  of  the  Scripture  doctrine  of  divine  grace;  and 
equally  serious  is  the  view  which  the  Arminian  must  hold 
as  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Reformed  Churches.  Yet  here 
again,  true  evangelical  fellowship  is  possible  between  those 


52  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

who  hold,  with  regard  to  some  exceedingly  important  mat¬ 
ters,  sharply  opposing  views. 

Far  more  serious  still  is  the  division  between  the 
Church  of  Rome  and  evangelical  Protestantism  in  all  its 
forms.  Yet  how  great  is  the  common  heritage  which 
unites  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  with  its  maintenance 
of  the  authority  of  Holy  Scripture  and  with  its  accept¬ 
ance  of  the  great  early  creeds,  to  devout  Protestants  to¬ 
day!  We  would  not  indeed  obscure  the  difference  which 
divides  us  from  Rome.  The  gulf  is  indeed  profound.  But 
profound  as  it  is,  it  seems  almost  trifling  compared  to  the 
abyss  which  stands  between  us  and  many  ministers  of  our 
own  Church.  The  Church  of  Rome  may  represent  a  per¬ 
version  of  the  Christian  religion ;  but  naturalistic  liberal¬ 
ism  is  not  Christianity  at  all. 

That  does  not  mean  that  conservatives  and  liberals 
must  live  in  personal  animosity.  It  does  not  involve  any 
lack  of  sympathy  on  our  part  for  those  who  have  felt 
obliged  by  the  current  of  the  times  to  relinquish  their  con-, 
fidence  in  the  strange  message  of  the  Cross.  Many  ties — - 
ties  of  blood,  of  citizenship,  of  ethical  aims,  of  humani¬ 
tarian  endeavor — unite  us  to  those  who  have  abandoned 
the  gospel.  We  trust  that  those  ties  may  never  be  weak¬ 
ened,  and  that  ultimately  they  may  serve  some  purpose  in 
the  propagation  of  the  Christian  faith.  But  Christian 
service  consists  primarily  in  the  propagation  of  a  mes¬ 
sage,  and  specifically  Christian  fellowship  exists  only  be¬ 
tween  those  to  whom  the  message  has  become  the  very 
basis  of  all  life. 

The  character  of  Christianity  as  founded  upon  a  mes¬ 
sage  is  summed  up  in  the  words  of  the  eighth  verse  of  the 
first  chapter  of  Acts — “Ye  shall  be  my  witnesses  both  in 
Jerusalem,  and  in  all  Judea  and  Samaria,  and  unto  the 
uttermost  part  of  the  earth.”  It  is  entirely  unnecessary. 


Doctrine 


53 


for  the  present  purpose,  to  argue  about  the  historical 
value  of  the  Book  of  Acts  or  to  discuss  the  question 
whether  Jesus  really  spoke  the  words  just  quoted.  In 
any  case  the  verse  must  be  recognized  as  an  adequate 
summary  of  what  is  known  about  primitive  Christianity. 
From  the  beginning  Christianity  was  a  campaign  of  wit¬ 
nessing.  And  the  witnessing  did  not  concern  merely  what 
Jesus  was  doing  within  the  recesses  of  the  individual  life. 
To  take  the  words  of  Acts  in  that  way  is  to  do  violence 
to  the  context  and  to  all  the  evidence.  On  the  contrary, 
the  Epistles  of  Paul  and  all  the  sources  make  it  abun¬ 
dantly  plain  that  the  testimony  was  primarily  not  to  inner 
spiritual  facts  but  to  what  Jesus  had  done  once  for  all  in 
His  death  and  resurrection. 

Christianity  is  based,  then,  upon  an  account  of  some¬ 
thing  that  happened,  and  the  Christian  worker  is  pri¬ 
marily  a  witness.  But  if  so,  it  is  rather  important  that 
the  Christian  worker  should  tell  the  truth.  When  a  man 
takes  his  seat  upon  the  witness  stand,  it  makes  little  dif¬ 
ference  what  the  cut  of  his  coat  is,  or  whether  his  sen¬ 
tences  are  nicely  turned.  The  important  thing  is  that  he 
tell  the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth. 
If  we  are  to  be  truly  Christians,  then,  it  does  make  a  vast 
difference  what  our  teachings  are,  and  it  is  by  no  means 
aside  from  the  point  to  set  forth  the  teachings  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  in  contrast  with  the  teachings  of  the  chief  modern 
rival  of  Christianity. 

The  chief  modern  rival  of  Christianity  is  “liberalism.” 
An  examination  of  the  teachings  of  liberalism  in  compari¬ 
son  with  those  of  Christianity  will  show  that  at  every 
point  the  two  movements  are  in  direct  opposition.  That 
examination  will  now  be  undertaken,  though  merely  in  a 
summary  and  cursory  way. 


CHAPTER  III 


GOD  AND  MAN 

It  has  been  observed  in  the  last  chapter  that  Christian¬ 
ity  is  based  on  an  account  of  something  that  happened  in 
the  first  century  of  our  era.  But  before  that  account  can 
be  received,  certain  presuppositions  must  be  accepted. 
The  Christian  gospel  consists  in  an  account  of  how  God 
saved  man,  and  before  that  gospel  can  be  understood 
something  must  be  known  (1)  about  God  and  (2)  about 
man.  The  doctrine  of  God  and  the  doctrine  of  man  are 
the  two  great  presuppositions  of  the  gospel.  With  regard 
to  these  presuppositions,  as  with  regard  to  the  gospel 
itself,  modern  liberalism  is  diametrically  opposed  to 
Christianity. 

It  is  opposed  to  Christianity,  in  the  first  place,  in  its 
conception  of  God.  But  at  this  point  we  are  met  with  a 
particularly  insistent  form  of  that  objection  to  doctrinal 
matters  which  has  already  been  considered.  It  is  unnec¬ 
essary,  we  are  told,  to  have  a  “conception”  of  God;  the¬ 
ology,  or  the  knowledge  of  God,  it  is  said,  is  the  death  of 
religion;  we  should  not  seek  to  know  God,  but  should 
merely  feel  His  presence. 

With  regard  to  this  objection,  it  ought  to  be  observed 
that  if  religion  consists  merely  in  feeling  the  presence  of 
God,  it  is  devoid  of  any  moral  quality  whatever.  Pure 
feeling,  if  there  be  such  a  thing,  is  non-moral.  What 
makes  affection  for  a  human  friend,  for  example,  such  an 
ennobling  thing  is  the  knowledge  which  we  possess  of  the 

54 


God  and  Man 


55 


character  of  our  friend.  Human  affection,  apparently  so 
simple,  is  really  just  bristling  with  dogma.  It  depends 
upon  a  host  of  observations  treasured  up  in  the  mind 
with  regard  to  the  character  of  our  friends.  But  if 
human  affection  is  thus  really  dependent  upon  knowledge, 
why  should  it  be  otherwise  with  that  supreme  personal 
relationship  which  is  at  the  basis  of  religion?  Why 
should  we  be  indignant  about  slanders  directed  against  a 
human  friend,  while  at  the  same  time  we  are  patient  about 
the  basest  slanders  directed  against  our  God?  Certainly 
it  does  make  the  greatest  possible  difference  what  we 
think  about  God;  the  knowledge  of  God  is  the  very  basis 
of  religion. 

How,  then,  shall  God  be  known;  how  shall  we  become 
so  acquainted  with  Him  that  personal  fellowship  may 
become  possible?  Some  liberal  preachers  would  say  that 
we  become  acquainted  with  God  only  through  Jesus. 
That  assertion  has  an  appearance  of  loyalty  to  our  Lord, 
but  in  reality  it  is  highly  derogatory  to  Him.  For  Jesus 
Himself  plainly  recognized  the  validity  of  other  ways  of 
knowing  God,  and  to  reject  those  other  ways  is  to  reject 
the  things  that  lay  at  the  very  centre  of  Jesus’  life.  Jesus 
plainly  found  God’s  hand  in  nature;  the  lilies  of  the  field 
revealed  to  Him  the  weaving  of  God.  He  found  God  also 
in  the  moral  law ;  the  law  written  in  the  hearts  of  men  was 
God’s  law,  which  revealed  His  righteousness.  Finally 
Jesus  plainly  found  God  revealed  in  the  Scriptures.  How 
profound  was  our  Lord’s  use  of  the  words  of  prophets  and 
psalmists !  To  say  that  such  revelation  of  God  was  in¬ 
valid,  or  is  useless  to  us  to-day,  is  to  do  despite  to  things 
that  lay  closest  to  Jesus’  mind  and  heart. 

But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  when  men  say  that  we  know 
God  only  as  He  is  revealed  in  Jesus,  they  are  denying  all 
real  knowledge  of  God  whatever.  For  unless  there  be 


56  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

some  idea  of  God  independent  of  Jesus,  the  ascription  of 
deity  to  Jesus  has  no  meaning.  To  say,  “Jesus  is  God,” 
is  meaningless  unless  the  word  “God”  has  an  antecedent 
meaning  attached  to  it.  And  the  attaching  of  a  meaning 
to  the  word  “God”  is  accomplished  by  the  means  which 
have  just  been  mentioned.  We  are  not  forgetting  the 
words  of  Jesus  in  the  Gospel  of  John,  “He  that  hath  seen 
me  hath  seen  the  Father.”  But  these  words  do  not  mean 
that  if  a  man  had  never  known  what  the  word  “God” 
means,  he  could  come  to  attach  an  idea  to  that  word 
merely  by  his  knowledge  of  Jesus’  character.  On  the  con¬ 
trary,  the  disciples  to  whom  Jesus  was  speaking  had 
already  a  very  definite  conception  of  God ;  a  knowledge 
of  the  one  supreme  Person  was  presupposed  in  all  that 
Jesus  said.  But  the  disciples  desired  not  only  a  knowledge 
of  God  but  also  intimate,  personal  contact.  And  that 
came  through  their  intercourse  with  Jesus.  Jesus  re¬ 
vealed,  in  a  wonderfully  intimate  way,  the  character  of 
God,  but  such  revelation  obtained  its  true  significance  only 
on  the  basis  both  of  the  Old  Testament  heritage  and  of 
Jesus’  own  teaching.  Rational  theism,  the  knowledge  of 
one  Supreme  Person,  Maker  and  active  Ruler  of  the  world, 
is  at  the  very  root  of  Christianity. 

But,  the  modern  preacher  will  say,  it  is  incongruous  to 
attribute  to  Jesus  an  acceptance  of  “rational  theism”; 
Jesus  had  a  practical,  not  a  theoretical,  knowledge  of  God. 
There  is  a  sense  in  which  these  words  are  true.  Certainly 
no  part  of  Jesus’  knowledge  of  God  was  merely  theoreti¬ 
cal;  everything  that  Jesus  knew  about  God  touched  His 
heart  and  determined  His  actions.  In  that  sense,  Jesus’ 
knowledge  of  God  was  “practical.”  But  unfortunately 
that  is  not  the  sense  in  which  the  assertion  of  modern 
liberalism  is  meant.  What  is  frequently  meant  by  a 
“practical”  knowledge  of  God  in  modern  parlance  is 


God  and  Man 


57 


not  a  theoretical  knowledge  of  God  that  is  also  practi¬ 
cal,  but  a  practical  knowledge  which  is  not  theoretical 
— in  other  words,  a  knowledge  which  gives  no  informa¬ 
tion  about  objective  reality,  a  knowledge  which  is  no 
knowledge  at  all.  And  nothing  could  possibly  be  more 
unlike  the  religion  of  Jesus  than  that.  The  relation  of 
Jesus  to  His  heavenly  Father  was  not  a  relation  to  a  vague 
and  impersonal  goodness,  it  was  not  a  relation  which 
merely  clothed  itself  in  symbolic,  personal  form.  On  the 
contrary,  it  was  a  relation  to  a  real  Person,  whose  exist¬ 
ence  was  just  as  definite  and  just  as  much  a  subject  of 
theoretic  knowledge  as  the  existence  of  the  lilies  of  the 
field  that  God  had  clothed.  The  very  basis  of  the  religion 
of  Jesus  was  a  triumphant  belief  in  the  real  existence  of  a 
personal  God. 

And  without  that  belief  no  type  of  religion  can  rightly 
appeal  to  Jesus  to-day.  Jesus  was  a  theist,  and  rational 
theism  is  at  the  basis  of  Christianity.  Jesus  did  not,  in¬ 
deed,  support  His  theism  by  argument ;  He  did  not  pro¬ 
vide  in  advance  answers  to  the  Kantian  attack  upon  the 
theistic  proofs.  But  that  means  not  that  He  was  indiffer¬ 
ent  to  the  belief  which  is  the  logical  result  of  those  proofs, 
but  that  the  belief  stood  so  firm,  both  to  Him  and  to  His 
hearers,  that  in  His  teaching  it  is  always  presupposed. 
So  to-day  it  is  not  necessary  for  all  Christians  to  analyze 
the  logical  basis  of  their  belief  in  God;  the  human  mind 
has  a  wonderful  faculty  for  the  condensation  of  perfectly 
valid  arguments,  and  what  seems  like  an  instinctive  belief 
may  turn  out  to  be  the  result  of  many  logical  steps.  Or, 
rather,  it  may  be  that  the  belief  in  a  personal  God  is  the 
result  of  a  primitive  revelation,  and  that  the  theistic 
proofs  are  only  the  logical  confirmation  of  what  was  orig¬ 
inally  arrived  at  by  a  different  means.  At  any  rate,  the 
logical  confirmation  of  the  belief  in  God  is  a  vital  concern 


58  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

to  the  Christian ;  at  this  point  as  at  many  others  religion 
and  philosophy  are  connected  in  the  most  intimate  pos¬ 
sible  way.  True  religion  can  make  no  peace  with  a  false 
philosophy,  any  more  than  with  a  science  that  is  falsely 
so-called ;  a  thing  cannot  possibly  be  true  in  religion  and 
false  in  philosophy  or  in  science.  All  methods  of  arriving 
at  truth,  if  they  be  valid  methods,  will  arrive  at  a  harmo¬ 
nious  result.  Certainly  the  atheistic  or  agnostic  Chris¬ 
tianity  which  sometimes  goes  under  the  name  of  a  “practi¬ 
cal”  religion  is  no  Christianity  at  all.  At  the  very  root  of 
Christianity  is  the  belief  in  the  real  existence  of  a  personal 
God. 

Strangely  enough,  at  the  very  time  when  modern  lib¬ 
eralism  is  decrying  the  theistic  proofs,  and  taking  refuge 
in  a  “practical”  knowledge  which  shall  somehow  be  inde¬ 
pendent  of  scientifically  or  philosophically  ascertained 
facts,  the  liberal  preacher  loves  to  use  one  designation  of 
God  which  is  nothing  if  not  theistic ;  he  loves  to  speak  of 
God  as  “Father.”  The  term  certainly  has  the  merit  of 
ascribing  personality  to  God.  By  some  of  those  who  use 
it,  indeed,  it  is  not  seriously  meant ;  by  some  it  is  em¬ 
ployed  because  it  is  useful,  not  because  it  is  true.  But 
not  all  liberals  are  able  to  make  the  subtle  distinction 
between  theoretic  judgments  and  judgments  of  value; 
some  liberals,  though  perhaps  a  decreasing  number,  are 
true  believers  in  a  personal  God.  And  such  men  are  able 
to  think  of  God  truly  as  a  Father. 

The  term  presents  a  very  lofty  conception  of  God.  It 
is  not  indeed  exclusively  Christian;  the  term  “Father”  has 
been  applied  to  God  outside  of  Christianity.  It  appears, 
for  example,  in  the  widespread  belief  in  an  “All-Father,” 
which  prevails  among  many  races  even  in  company  with 
polytheism;  it  appears  here  and  there  in  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment,  and  in  pre-Christian  Jewish  writings  subsequent  to 


God  and  Man 


59 


the  Old  Testament  period.  Such  occurrences  of  the  term 
are  by  no  means  devoid  of  significance.  The  Old  Testa¬ 
ment  usage,  in  particular,  is  a  worthy  precursor  of  our 
Lord’s  teaching;  for  although  in  the  Old  Testament  the 
word  “Father”  ordinarily  designates  God  in  relation  not 
to  the  individual,  but  to  the  nation  or  to  the  king,  yet  the 
individual  Israelite,  because  of  his  part  in  the  chosen  peo¬ 
ple,  felt  himself  to  be  in  a  peculiarly  intimate  relation  to 
the  covenant  God.  But  despite  this  anticipation  of  the 
teaching  of  our  Lord,  Jesus  brought  such  an  incomparable 
enrichment  of  the  usage  of  the  term,  that  it  is  a  correct 
instinct  which  regards  the  thought  of  God  as  Father  as 
something  characteristically  Christian. 

Modern  men  have  been  so  much  impressed  with  this  ele¬ 
ment  in  Jesus’  teaching  that  they  have  sometimes  been 
inclined  to  regard  it  as  the  very  sum  and  substance  of  our 
religion.  We  are  not  interested,  they  say,  in  many  things 
for  which  men  formerly  gave  their  lives ;  we  are  not  inter¬ 
ested  in  the  theology  of  the  creeds ;  we  are  not  interested 
in  the  doctrines  of  sin  and  salvation;  we  are  not  inter¬ 
ested  in  atonement  through  the  blood  of  Christ :  enough 
for  us  is  the  simple  truth  of  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  its 
corollary,  the  brotherhood  of  man.  We  may  not  be  very 
orthodox  in  the  theological  sense,  they  continue,  but  of 
course  you  will  recognize  us  as  Christians  because  we 
accept  Jesus’  teaching  as  to  the  Father  God. 

It  is  very  strange  how  intelligent  persons  can  speak  in 
this  way.  It  is  very  strange  how  those  who  accept  only 
the  universal  fatherhood  of  God  as  the  sum  and  substance 
of  religion  can  regard  themselves  as  Christians  or  can 
appeal  to  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  For  the  plain  fact  is  that 
this  modern  doctrine  of  the  universal  fatherhood  of  God 
formed  no  part  whatever  of  Jesus’  teaching.  Where  is  it 
that  Jesus  may  be  supposed  to  have  taught  the  universal 


60  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

fatherhood  of  God?  Certainly  it  is  not  in  the  parable  of 
the  Prodigal  Son.  For  in  the  first  place,  the  publicans 
and  sinners  whose  acceptance  by  Jesus  formed  the  occa¬ 
sion  both  of  the  Pharisees’  objection  and  of  Jesus’  answer 
to  them  by  means  of  the  parable,  were  not  any  men  any¬ 
where,  but  were  members  of  the  chosen  people  and  as  such 
might  be  designated  as  sons  of  God.  In  the  second  place, 
a  parable  is  certainly  not  to  be  pressed  in  its  details.  So 
here  because  the  joy  of  the  father  in  the  parable  is  like 
the  joy  of  God  when  a  sinner  receives  salvation  at  Jesus’ 
hand,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  relation  which  God  sus¬ 
tains  to  still  unrepentant  sinners  is  that  of  a  Father  to  his 
children.  Where  else,  then,  can  the  universal  fatherhood 
of  God  be  found?  Surely  not  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount ;  for  throughout  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  those 
who  can  call  God  Father  are  distinguished  in  the  most 
emphatic  way  from  the  great  world  of  the  Gentiles  out¬ 
side.  One  passage  in  the  discourse  has  indeed  been  urged 
in  support  of  the  modern  doctrine :  “But  I  say  unto  you, 
love  your  enemies  and  pray  for  them  that  persecute  you; 
that  ye  may  be  sons  of  your  Father  who  is  in  heaven;  for 
He  maketh  His  sun  to  rise  on  evil  and  good  and  sendeth 
rain  on  just  and  unjust”  (Matt.  v.  44,  45).  But  the 
passage  certainly  will  not  bear  the  weight  which  is  hung 
upon  it.  God  is  indeed  represented  here  as  caring  for  all 
men  whether  evil  or  good,  but  He  is  certainly  not  called 
the  Father  of  all.  Indeed  it  might  almost  be  said  that  the 
point  of  the  passage  depends  on  the  fact  that  He  is  not 
the  Father  of  all.  He  cares  even  for  those  who  are  not 
His  children  but  His  enemies ;  so  His  children,  Jesus’  dis¬ 
ciples,  ought  to  imitate  Him  by  loving  even  those  who  are 
not  their  brethren  but  their  persecutors.  The  modern 
doctrine  of  the  universal  fatherhood  of  God  is  not  to  be 
found  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus. 


God  and  Man 


61 


And  it  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  New  Testament.  The 
whole  New  Testament  and  Jesus  Himself  do  indeed  repre¬ 
sent  God  as  standing  in  a  relation  to  all  men,  whether 
Christians  or  not,  which  is  analogous  to  that  in  which  a 
father  stands  to  his  children.  He  is  the  Author  of  the 
being  of  all,  and  as  such  might  well  be  called  the  Father  of 
all.  He  cares  for  all,  and  for  that  reason  also  might  be 
called  the  Father  of  all.  Here  and  there  the  figure  of 
fatherhood  seems  to  be  used  to  designate  this  broader 
relationship  which  God  sustains  to  all  men  or  even  to  all 
created  beings.  So  in  an  isolated  passage  in  Hebrews, 
God  is  spoken  of  as  the  “Father  of  spirits”  (Heb.  xii.  9). 
Here  perhaps  it  is  the  relation  of  God,  as  creator,  to  the 
personal  beings  whom  He  has  created  which  is  in  view. 
One  of  the  clearest  instances  of  the  broader  use  of  the 
figure  of  fatherhood  is  found  in  the  speech  of  Paul  at 
Athens,  Acts  xvii.  28:  “For  we  are  also  His  offspring.” 
Here  it  is  plainly  the  relation  in  which  God  stands  to  all 
men,  whether  Christians  or  not,  which  is  in  mind.  But  the 
words  form  part  of  an  hexameter  line  and  are  taken  from 
a  pagan  poet ;  they  are  not  represented  as  part  of  the 
gospel,  but  merely  as  belonging  to  the  common  meeting- 
ground  which  Paul  discovered  in  speaking  to  his  pagan 
hearers.  This  passage  is  only  typical  of  what  appears, 
with  respect  to  a  universal  fatherhood  of  God,  in  the  New 
Testament  as  a  whole.  Something  analogous  to  a  univer¬ 
sal  fatherhood  of  God  is  taught  in  the  New  Testament. 
Here  and  there  the  terminology  of  fatherhood  and  sonship 
is  even  used  to  describe  this  general  relationship.  But 
such  instances  are  extremely  rare.  Ordinarily  the  lofty 
term  “Father”  is  used  to  describe  a  relationship  of  a  far 
more  intimate  kind,  the  relationship  in  which  God  stands 
to  the  company  of  the  redeemed. 

The  modern  doctrine  of  the  universal  fatherhood  of 


62  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

God,  then,  which  is  being  celebrated  as  “the  essence  of 
Christianity,”  really  belongs  at  best  only  to  that  vague 
natural  religion  which  forms  the  presupposition  which  the 
Christian  preacher  can  use  when  the  gospel  is  to  be  pro¬ 
claimed;  and  when  it  is  regarded  as  a  reassuring,  all- 
sufficient  thing,  it  comes  into  direct  opposition  to  the  New 
Testament.  The  gospel  itself  refers  to  something  entirely 
different ;  the  really  distinctive  New  Testament  teaching 
about  the  fatherhood  of  God  concerns  only  those  who  have 
been  brought  into  the  household  of  faith. 

There  is  nothing  narrow  about  such  teaching;  for  the 
door  of  the  household  of  faith  is  open  wide  to  all.  That 
door  is  the  “new  and  living  way”  which  Jesus  opened  by 
His  blood.  And  if  we  really  love  our  fellowmen,  we  shall 
not  go  about  the  world,  with  the  liberal  preacher,  trying 
to  make  men  satisfied'with  the  coldness  of  a  vague  natural 
religion.  But  by  the  preaching  of  the  gospel  we  shall  in¬ 
vite  them  into  the  warmth  and  joy  of  the  house  of  God. 
Christianity  offers  men  all  that  is  offered  by  the  modern 
liberal  teaching  about  the  universal  fatherhood  of  God; 
but  it  is  Christianity  only  because  it  offers  also  infinitely 
more. 

But  the  liberal  conception  of  God  differs  even  more  fun¬ 
damentally  from  the  Christian  view  than  in  the  different 
circle  of  ideas  connected  with  the  terminology  of  father¬ 
hood.  The  truth  is  that  liberalism  has  lost  sight  of  the 
very  centre  and  core  of  the  Christian  teaching.  In  the 
Christian  view  of  God  as  set  forth  in  the  Bible,  there  are 
many  elements.  But  one  attribute  of  God  is  absolutely 
fundamental  in  the  Bible ;  one  attribute  is  absolutely  nec¬ 
essary  in  order  to  render  intelligible  all  the  rest.  That 
attribute  is  the  awful  transcendence  of  God.  From  begin¬ 
ning  to  end  the  Bible  is  concerned  to  set  forth  the  awful 
gulf  that  separates  the  creature  from  the  Creator.  It  is 


God  and  Man 


63 


true,  indeed,  that  according  to  the  Bible  God  is  immanent 
in  the  world.  Not  a  sparrow  falls  to  the  ground  without 
Him.  But  he  is  immanent  in  the  world  not  because  He 
is  identified  with  the  world,  but  because  He  is  the  free 
Creator  and  Upholder  of  it.  Between  the  creature  and 
the  Creator  a  great  gulf  is  fixed. 

In  modern  liberalism,  on  the  other  hand,  this  sharp  dis¬ 
tinction  between  God  and  the  world  is  broken  down,  and 
the  name  “God”  is  applied  to  the  mighty  world  process 
itself.  We  find  ourselves  in  the  midst  of  a  mighty  process, 
which  manifests  itself  in  the  indefinitely  small  and  in  the 
indefinitely  great — in  the  infinitesimal  life  which  is  revealed 
through  the  microscope  and  in  the  vast  movements  of  the 
heavenly  spheres.  To  this  world-process,  of  which  we  our¬ 
selves  form  a  part,  we  apply  the  dread  name  of  “God.” 
God,  therefore,  it  is  said  in  effect,  is  not  a  person  distinct 
from  ourselves ;  on  the  contrary  our  life  is  a  part  of  His. 
Thus  the  Gospel  story  of  the  Incarnation,  according  to 
modern  liberalism,  is  sometimes  thought  of  as  a  symbol  of 
the  general  truth  that  man  at  his  best  is  one  with  God. 

It  is  strange  how  such  a  representation  can  be  regarded 
as  anything  new,  for  as  a  matter  of  fact,  pantheism  is  a 
very  ancient  phenomenon.  It  has  always  been  with  us,  to 
blight  the  religious  life  of  man.  And  modern  liberalism, 
even  when  it  is  not  consistently  pantheistic,  is  at  any  rate 
pantheizing.  It  tends  everywhere  to  break  down  the  sep¬ 
arateness  between  God  and  the  world,  and  the  sharp  per¬ 
sonal  distinction  between  God  and  man.  Even  the  sin  of 
man  on  this  view  ought  logically  to  be  regarded  as  part 
of  the  life  of  God.  Very  different  is  the  living  and  holy 
God  of  the  Bible  and  of  Christian  faith. 

Christianity  differs  from  liberalism,  then,  in  the  first 
place,  in  its  conception  of  God.  But  it  also  differs  in  its 
conception  of  man. 


64  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

Modern  liberalism  has  lost  all  sense  of  the  gulf  that 
separates  the  creature  from  the  Creator ;  its  doctrine  of 
man  follows  naturally  from  its  doctrine  of  God.  But  it 
is  not  only  the  creature  limitations  of  mankind  which  are 
denied.  Even  more  important  is  another  difference.  Ac¬ 
cording  to  the  Bible,  man  is  a  sinner  under  the  just  con¬ 
demnation  of  God;  according  to  modern  liberalism,  there 
is  really  no  such  thing  as  sin.  At  the  very  root  of  the 
modern  liberal  movement  is  the  loss  of  the  consciousness 
of  sin.1 

The  consciousness  of  sin  was  formerly  the  starting- 
point  of  all  preaching ;  but  to-day  it  is  gone.  Character¬ 
istic  of  the  modern  age,  above  all  else,  is  a  supreme 
confidence  in  human  goodness ;  the  religious  literature  of 
the  day  is  redolent  of  that  confidence.  Get  beneath  the 
rough  exterior  of  men,  we  are  told,  and  we  shall  discover 
enough  self-sacrifice  to  found  upon  it  the  hope  of  society ; 
the  world’s  evil,  it  is  said,  can  be  overcome  with  the 
world’s  good;  no  help  is  needed  from  outside  the  world. 

What  has  produced  this  satisfaction  with  human  good¬ 
ness?  What  has  become  of  the  consciousness  of  sin?  The 
consciousness  of  sin  has  certainly  been  lost.  But  what  has 
removed  it  from  the  hearts  of  men? 

In  the  first  place,  the  war  has  perhaps  had  something 
to  do  with  the  change.  In  time  of  war,  our  attention  is 
called  so  exclusively  to  the  sins  of  other  people  that  we 
are  sometimes  inclined  to  forget  our  own  sins.  Attention 
to  the  sins  of  other  people  is,  indeed,  sometimes  necessary. 
It  is  quite  right  to  be  indignant  against  any  oppression  of 
the  weak  which  is  being  carried  on  by  the  strong.  But 
such  a  habit  of  mind,  if  made  permanent,  if  carried  over 
into  the  days  of  peace,  has  its  dangers.  It  joins  forces 

1  For  what  follows,  see  “The  Church  in  the  War,”  in  The  Presby¬ 
terian,  for  May  29,  1919,  pp.  lOf. 


God  and  Man 


65 


with  the  collectivism  of  the  modern  state  to  obscure  the 
individual,  personal  character  of  guilt.  If  John  Smith 
beats  his  wife  nowadays,  no  one  is  so  old-fashioned  as  to 
blame  John  Smith  for  it.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  said,  John 
Smith  is  evidently  the  victim  of  some  more  of  that  Bol¬ 
shevistic  propaganda ;  Congress  ought  to  be  called  in 
extra  session  in  order  to  take  up  the  case  of  John  Smith 
in  an  alien  and  sedition  law. 

But  the  loss  of  the  consciousness  of  sin  is  far  deeper 
than  the  war;  it  has  its  roots  in  a  mighty  spiritual 
process  which  has  been  active  during  the  past  seventy-five 
years.  Like  other  great  movements,  that  process  has 
come  silently — so  silently  that  its  results  have  been 
achieved  before  the  plain  man  was  even  aware  of  what  was 
taking  place.  Nevertheless,  despite  all  superficial  conti¬ 
nuity,  a  remarkable  change  has  come  about  within  the  last 
seventy-five  years.  The  change  is  nothing  less  than  the 
substitution  of  paganism  for  Christianity  as  the  dominant 
view  of  life.  Seventy-five  years  ago,  Western  civilization, 
despite  inconsistencies,  was  still  predominantly  Christian; 
to-day  it  is  predominantly  pagan. 

In  speaking  of  “paganism,”  we  are  not  using  a  term  of 
reproach.  Ancient  Greece  was  pagan,  but  it  was  glorious, 
and  the  modern  world  has  not  even  begun  to  equal  its 
achievements.  What,  then,  is  paganism?  The  answer  is 
not  really  difficult.  Paganism  is  that  view  of  life  which 
finds  the  highest  goal  of  human  existence  in  the  healthy 
and  harmonious  and  joyous  development  of  existing 
human  faculties.  Very  different  is  the  Christian  ideal. 
Paganism  is  optimistic  with  regard  to  unaided  human 
nature,  whereas  Christianity  is  the  religion  of  the  broken 
heart. 

In  saying  that  Christianity  is  the  religion  of  the  broken 
heart,  we  do  not  mean  that  Christianity  ends  with  the 


66  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

broken  heart ;  we  do  not  mean  that  the  characteristic 
Christian  attitude  is  a  continual  beating  on  the  breast  or 
a  continual  crying  of  “Woe  is  me.”  Nothing  could  be 
further  from  the  fact.  On  the  contrary,  Christianity 
means  that  sin  is  faced  once  for  all,  and  then  is  cast,  by 
the  grace  of  God,  forever  into  the  depths  of  the  sea.  The 
trouble  with  the  paganism  of  ancient  Greece,  as  with  the 
paganism  of  modern  times,  was  not  in  the  superstruc¬ 
ture,  which  was  glorious,  but  in  the  foundation,  which  was 
rotten.  There  was  always  something  to  be  covered  up; 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  architect  was  maintained  only  by 
ignoring  the  disturbing  fact  of  sin.  In  Christianity,  on 
the  other  hand,  nothing  needs  to  be  covered  up.  The  fact 
of  sin  is  faced  resolutely  once  for  all,  and  is  removed  by 
the  grace  of  God.  But  then,  after  sin  has  been  removed 
by  the  grace  of  God,  the  Christian  can  proceed  to  develop 
joyously  every  faculty  that  God  has  given  him.  Such  is 
the  higher  Christian  humanism — a  humanism  founded  not 
upon  human  pride  but  upon  divine  grace. 

But  although  Christianity  does  not  end  with  the  broken 
heart,  it  does  begin  with  the  broken  heart ;  it  begins  with 
the  consciousness  of  sin.  Without  the  consciousness  of 
sin,  the  whole  of  the  gospel  will  seems  to  be  an  idle  tale. 
But  how  can  the  consciousness  of  sin  be  revived?  Some¬ 
thing  no  doubt  can  be  accomplished  by  the  proclamation 
of  the  law  of  God,  for  the  law  reveals  transgressions.  The 
whole  of  the  law,  moreover,  should  be  proclaimed.  It  will 
hardly  be  wise  to  adopt  the  suggestion  (recently  offered 
among  many  suggestions  as  to  the  ways  in  which  we  shall 
have  to  modify  our  message  in  order  to  retain  the  alle¬ 
giance  of  the  returning  soldiers)  that  we  must  stop  treat¬ 
ing  the  little  sins  as  though  they  were  big  sins.  That 
suggestion  means  apparently  that  we  must  not  worry  too 
much  about  the  little  sins,  but  must  let  them  remain  unmo- 


God  and  Man 


67 


lested.  With  regard  to  such  an  expedient,  it  may  perhaps 
be  suggested  that  in  the  moral  battle  we  are  fighting 
against  a  very  resourceful  enemy,  who  does  not  reveal  the 
position  of  his  guns  by  desultory  artillery  action  when  he 
plans  a  great  attack.  In  the  moral  battle,  as  in  the  Great 
European  War,  the  quiet  sectors  are  usually  the  most 
dangerous.  It  is  through  the  “little  sins”  that  Satan 
gains  an  entrance  into  our  lives.  Probably,  therefore,  it 
will  be  prudent  to  watch  all  sectors  of  the  front  and  lose 
no  time  about  introducing  the  unity  of  command. 

But  if  the  consciousness  of  sin  is  to  be  produced,  the 
law  of  God  must  be  proclaimed  in  the  lives  of  Christian 
people  as  well  as  in  word.  It  is  quite  useless  for  the 
preacher  to  breathe  out  fire  and  brimstone  from  the  pul¬ 
pit,  if  at  the  same  time  the  occupants  of  the  pews  go  on 
taking  sin  very  lightly  and  being  content  with  the  moral 
standards  of  the  world.  The  rank  and  file  of  the  Church 
must  do  their  part  in  so  proclaiming  the  law  of  God  by 
their  lives  that  the  secrets  of  men’s  hearts  shall  be 
revealed. 

All  these  things,  however,  are  in  themselves  quite  insuf¬ 
ficient  to  produce  the  consciousness  of  sin.  The  more  one 
observes  the  condition  of  the  Church,  the  more  one  feels 
obliged  to  confess  that  the  conviction  of  sin  is  a  great 
mystery,  which  can  be  produced  only  by  the  Spirit  of 
God.  Proclamation  of  the  law,  in  word  and  in  deed,  can 
prepare  for  the  experience,  but  the  experience  itself  comes 
from  God.  When  a  man  has  that  experience,  when  a  man 
comes  under  the  conviction  of  sin,  his  whole  attitude 
toward  life  is  transformed;  he  wonders  at  his  former 
blindness,  and  the  message  of  the  gospel,  which  formerly 
seemed  to  be  an  idle  tale,  becomes  now  instinct  with  light. 
But  it  is  God  alone  who  can  produce  the  change. 

Only,  let  us  not  try  to  do  without  the  Spirit  of  God. 


68 


Christianity  and  Liberalism 

The  fundamental  fault  of  the  modern  Church  is  that  she 
is  busily  engaged  in  an  absolutely  impossible  task — she  is 
busily  engaged  in  calling  the  righteous  to  repentance. 
Modern  preachers  are  trying  to  bring  men  into  the  Church 
without  requiring  them  to  relinquish  their  pride ;  they  are 
trying  to  help  men  avoid  the  conviction  of  sin.  The 
preacher  gets  up  into  the  pulpit,  opens  the  Bible,  and 
addresses  the  congregation  somewhat  as  follows:  “You 
people  are  very  good,”  he  says ;  “you  respond  to  every 
appeal  that  looks  toward  the  welfare  of  the  community. 
Now  we  have  in  the  Bible — especially  in  the  life  of  Jesus — 
something  so  good  that  we  believe  it  is  good  enough  even 
for  you  good  people.”  Such  is  modern  preaching.  It  is 
heard  every  Sunday  in  thousands  of  pulpits.  But  it  is 
entirely  futile.  Even  our  Lord  did  not  call  the  righteous 
to  repentance,  and  probably  we  shall  be  no  more  successful 
than  He. 


CHAPTER  IV 


THE  BIBLE 

/ 

Modern  liberalism,  it  has  been  observed  so  far,  has 
lost  sight  of  the  two  great  presuppositions  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  message — the  living  God,  and  the  fact  of  sin.  The 
liberal  doctrine  of  God  and  the  liberal  doctrine  of  man  are 
both  diametrically  opposite  to  the  Christian  view.  But 
the  divergence  concerns  not  only  the  presuppositions  of 
the  message,  but  also  the  message  itself. 

The  Christian  message  has  come  to  us  through  the 
Bible.  What  shall  we  think  about  this  Book  in  which  the 
message  is  contained? 

According  to  the  Christian  view,  the  Bible  contains  an 
account  of  a  revelation  from  God  to  man,  which  is  found 
nowhere  else.  It  is  true,  the  Bible  also  contains  a  con¬ 
firmation  and  a  wonderful  enrichment  of  the  revelations 
which  are  given  also  by  the  things  that  God  has  made  and 
by  the  conscience  of  man.  “The  heavens  declare  the  glory 
of  God;  and  the  firmament  showeth  his  handywork” — 
these  words  are  a  confirmation  of  the  revelation  of  God 
in  nature;  “all  have  sinned  and  fall  short  of  the  glory  of 
God” — these  words  are  a  confirmation  of  what  is  attested 
by  the  conscience.  But  in  addition  to  such  reaffirmations 
of  what  might  conceivably  be  learned  elsewhere — as  a 
matter  of  fact,  because  of  men’s  blindness,  even  so  much  is 
learned  elsewhere  only  in  comparatively  obscure  fashion — 
the  Bible  also  contains  an  account  of  a  revelation  which  is 
absolutely  new.  That  new  revelation  concerns  the  way 

69 


70  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

by  which  sinful  man  can  come  into  communion  with  the 
living  God. 

The  way  was  opened,  according  to  the  Bible,  by  an  act 
of  God,  when,  almost  nineteen  hundred  years  ago,  outside 
the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  the  eternal  Son  was  offered  as  a 
sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  men.  To  that  one  great  event  the 
whole  Old  Testament  looks  forward,  and  in  that  one  event 
the  whole  of  the  New  Testament  finds  its  centre  and  core. 
Salvation  then,  according  to  the  Bible,  is  not  something 
that  was  discovered,  but  something  that  happened.  Hence 
appears  the  uniqueness  of  the  Bible.  All  the  ideas  of 
Christianity  might  be  discovered  in  some  other  religion, 
yet  there  would  be  in  that  other  religion  no  Christianity. 
For  Christianity  depends,  not  upon  a  complex  of  ideas, 
but  upon  the  narration- of  an  event.  Without  that  event, 
the  world,  in  the  Christian  view,  is  altogether  dark,  and 
humanity  is  lost  under  the  guilt  of  sin.  There  can  be  no 
salvation  by  the  discovery  of  eternal  truth,  for  eternal 
truth  brings  naught  but  despair,  because  of  sin.  But  a 
new  face  has  been  put  upon  life  by  the  blessed  thing  that 
God  did  when  He  offered  up  His  only  begotten  Son. 

An  objection  is  sometimes  offered  against  this  view  of 
the  contents  of  the  Bible.1  Must  we,  it  is  said,  depend 
upon  what  happened  so  long  ago?  Does  salvation  wait 
upon  the  examination  of  musty  records?  Is  the  trained 
student  of  Palestinian  history  the  modern  priest  without 
whose  gracious  intervention  no  one  can  see  God?  Can  we 
not  find,  instead,  a  salvation  that  is  independent  of  his¬ 
tory,  a  salvation  that  depends  only  on  what  is  with  us 
here  and  now? 

The  objection  is  not  devoid  of  weight.  But  it  ignores 
one  of  the  primary  evidences  for  the  truth  of  the  gospel 
record.  That  evidence  is  found  in  Christian  experience. 

1  For  what  follows  compare  History  and  Faith,  1915,  pp.  13-15. 


The  Bible 


71 


Salvation  does  depend  upon  what  happened  long  ago,  but 
the  event  of  long  ago  has  effects  that  continue  until  to¬ 
day.  We  are  told  in  the  New  Testament  that  Jesus 
offered  Himself  as  a  sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  those  who 
should  believe  on  Him.  That  is  a  record  of  a  past  event. 
But  we  can  make  trial  of  it  to-day,  and  making  trial  of 
it  we  find  it  to  be  true.  We  are  told  in  the  New  Testament 
that  on  a  certain  morning  long  ago  Jesus  rose  from  the 
dead.  That  again  is  a  record  of  a  past  event.  But  again 
we  can  make  trial  of  it,  and  making  trial  of  it  we  discover 
that  Jesus  is  truly  a  living  Saviour  to-day. 

But  at  this  point  a  fatal  error  lies  in  wait.  It  is  one 
of  the  root  errors  of  modern  liberalism.  Christian  experi¬ 
ence,  we  have  just  said,  is  useful  as  confirming  the  gospel 
message.  But  because  it  is  necessary,  many  men  have 
jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  all  that  is  necessary. 
Having  a  present  experience  of  Christ  in  the  heart,  may 
we  not,  it  is  said,  hold  that  experience  no  matter  what  his¬ 
tory  may  tell  us  as  to  the  events  of  the  first  Easter  morn¬ 
ing?  May  we  not  make  ourselves  altogether  independent 
of  the  results  of  Biblical  criticism?  No  matter  what  sort 
of  man  history  may  tell  us  Jesus  of  Nazareth  actually 
was,  no  matter  what  history  may  say  about  the  real  mean¬ 
ing  of  His  death  or  about  the  story  of  His  alleged  resur¬ 
rection,  may  we  not  continue  to  experience  the  presence 
of  Christ  in  our  souls? 

The  trouble  is  that  the  experience  thus  maintained  is 
not  Christian  experience.  Religious  experience  it  may  be, 
but  Christian  experience  it  certainly  is  not.  For  Chris¬ 
tian  experience  depends  absolutely  upon  an  event.  The 
Christian  says  to  himself :  “I  have  meditated  upon  the 
problem  of  becoming  right  with  God,  I  have  tried  to  pro¬ 
duce  a  righteousness  that  will  stand  in  His  sight ;  but 
when  I  heard  the  gospel  message  I  learned  that  what  I  had 


72  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

weakly  striven  to  accomplish  had  been  accomplished  by 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  when  He  died  for  me  on  the  Cross 
and  completed  His  redeeming  work  by  the  glorious  resur¬ 
rection.  If  the  thing  has  not  yet  been  done,  if  I  merely 
have  an  idea  of  its  accomplishment,  then  I  am  of  all  men 
most  miserable,  for  I  am  still  in  my  sins.  My  Christian 
life,  then,  depends  altogether  upon  the  truth  of  the  New 
Testament  record.” 

Christian  experience  is  rightly  used  when  it  confirms  the 
documentary  evidence.  But  it  can  never  possibly  provide 
a  substitute  for  the  documentary  evidence.  We  know  that 
the  gospel  story  is  true  partly  because  of  the  early  date 
of  the  documents  in  which  it  appears,  the  evidence  as  to 
their  authorship,  the  internal  evidence  of  their  truth,  the 
impossibility  of  explaining  them  as  being  based  upon  de¬ 
ception  or  upon  myth.  This  evidence  is  gloriously  con¬ 
firmed  by  present  experience,  which  adds  to  the  docu¬ 
mentary  evidence  that  wonderful  directness  and  immediacy 
of  conviction  which  delivers  us  from  fear.  Christian  expe¬ 
rience  is  rightly  used  when  it  helps  to  convince  us  that  the 
events  narrated  in  the  New  Testament  actually  did  occur; 
but  it  can  never  enable  us  to  be  Christians  whether  the 
events  occurred  or  not.  It  is  a  fair  flower,  and  should  be 
prized  as  a  gift  of  God.  But  cut  it  from  its  root  in  the 
blessed  Book,  and  it  soon  withers  away  and  dies. 

Thus  the  revelation  of  which  an  account  is  contained  in 
the  Bible  embraces  not  only  a  reaffirmation  of  eternal 
truths — itself  necessary  because  the  truths  have  been 
obscured  by  the  blinding  effect  of  sin — but  also  a  revela¬ 
tion  which  sets  forth  the  meaning  of  an  act  of  God. 

The  contents  of  the  Bible,  then,  are  unique.  But 
another  fact  about  the  Bible  is  also  important.  The  Bible 
might  contain  an  account  of  a  true  revelation  from  God, 
and  yet  the  account  be  full  of  error.  Before  the  full 


The  Bible 


73 


authority  of  the  Bible  can  be  established,  therefore,  it  is 
necessary  to  add  to  the  Christian  doctrine  of  revelation 
the  Christian  doctrine  of  inspiration.  The  latter  doctrine 
means  that  the  Bible  not  only  is  an  account  of  important 
things,  but  that  the  account  itself  is  true,  the  writers  hav¬ 
ing  been  so  preserved  from  error,  despite  a  full  mainte¬ 
nance  of  their  habits  of  thought  and  expression,  that  the 
resulting  Book  is  the  “infallible  rule  of  faith  and 
practice.” 

This  doctrine  of  “plenary  inspiration”  has  been  made 
the  subject  of  persistent  misrepresentation.  Its  oppo¬ 
nents  speak  of  it  as  though  it  involved  a  mechanical  theory 
of  the  activity  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  Spirit,  it  is  said, 
is  represented  in  this  doctrine  as  dictating  the  Bible  to 
writers  who  were  really  little  more  than  stenographers. 
But  of  course  all  such  caricatures  are  without  basis  in 
fact,  and  it  is  rather  surprising  that  intelligent  men 
should  be  so  blinded  by  prejudice  about  this  matter  as 
not  even  to  examine  for  themselves  the  perfectly  accessible 
treatises  in  which  the  doctrine  of  plenary  inspiration  is 
set  forth.  It  is  usually  considered  good  practice  to  exam¬ 
ine  a  thing  for  one’s  self  before  echoing  the  vulgar  ridicule 
of  it.  But  in  connection  with  the  Bible,  such  scholarly 
restraints  are  somehow  regarded  as  out  of  place.  It  is  so 
much  easier  to  content  one’s  self  with  a  few  opprobrious 
adjectives  such  as  “mechanical,”  or  the  like.  Why  engage 
in  serious  criticism  when  the  people  prefer  ridicule?  Why 
attack  a  real  opponent  when  it  is  easier  to  knock  down  a 
man  of  straw?  1 

1  It  is  not  denied  that  there  are  some  persons  in  the  modern  Church 
who  do  neglect  the  context  of  Bible  quotations  and  who  do  ignore 
the  human  characteristics  of  the  Biblical  writers.  But  in  an  entirely 
unwarrantable  manner  this  defective  way  of  using  the  Bible  is 
attributed,  by  insinuation  at  least,  to  the  great  body  of  those  who 
have  held  to  the  inspiration  of  Scripture. 


74  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  doctrine  of  plenary  inspira¬ 
tion  does  not  deny  the  individuality  of  the  Biblical  writers  ; 
it  does  not  ignore  their  use  of  ordinary  means  for  acquir¬ 
ing  information;  it  does  not  involve  any  lack  of  interest 
in  the  historical  situations  which  gave  rise  to  the  Biblical 
books.  What  it  does  deny  is  the  presence  of  error  in  the 
Bible.  It  supposes  that  the  Holy  Spirit  so  informed  the 
minds  of  the  Biblical  writers  that  they  were  kept  from 
falling  into  the  errors  that  mar  all  other  books.  The 
Bible  might  contain  an  account  of  a  genuine  revelation  of 
God,  and  yet  not  contain  a  true  account.  But  according 
to  the  doctrine  of  inspiration,  the  account  is  as  a  matter 
of  fact  a  true  account ;  the  Bible  is  an  “infallible  rule  of 
faith  and  practice.” 

Certainly  that  is  a  stupendous  claim,  and  it  is  no  won¬ 
der  that  it  has  been  attacked.  But  the  trouble  is  that  the 
attack  is  not  always  fair.  If  the  liberal  preacher  objected 
to  the  doctrine  of  plenary  inspiration  on  the  ground  that 
as  a  matter  of  fact  there  are  errors  in  the  Bible,  he  might 
be  right  and  he  might  be  wrong,  but  at  any  rate  the  dis¬ 
cussion  would  be  conducted  on  the  proper  ground.  But  too 
often  the  preacher  desires  to  avoid  the  delicate  question  of 
errors  in  the  Bible — a  question  which  might  give  offence 
to  the  rank  and  file — and  prefers  to  speak  merely  against 
“mechanical”  theories  of  inspiration,  the  theory  of  “dic¬ 
tation,”  the  “superstitious  use  of  the  Bible  as  a  talisman,” 
or  the  like.  It  all  sounds  to  the  plain  man  as  though  it 
were  very  harmless.  Does  not  the  liberal  preacher  say 
that  the  Bible  is  “divine” — indeed  that  it  is  the  more 
divine  because  it  is  the  more  human?  What  could  be  more 
edifying  than  that  ?  But  of  course  such  appearances  are 
deceptive.  A  Bible  that  is  full  of  error  is  certainly  divine 
in  the  modern  pantheizing  sense  of  “divine,”  according  to 
which  God  is  just  another  name  for  the  course  of  the  world 


The  Bible 


i 


75 


with  all  its  imperfections  and  all  its  sin.  But  the  God 
whom  the  Christian  worships  is  a  God  of  truth. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  there  are  many  Christians  who 
do  not  accept  the  doctrine  of  plenary  inspiration.  That 
doctrine  is  denied  not  only  by  liberal  opponents  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  but  also  by  many  true  Christian  men.  There  are 
many  Christian  men  in  the  modern  Church  who  find  in  the 
origin  of  Christianity  no  mere  product  of  evolution  but  a 
real  entrance  of  the  creative  power  of  God,  who  depend 
for  their  salvation,  not  at  all  upon  their  own  efforts  to 
lead  the  Christ  life,  but  upon  the  atoning  blood  of  Christ 
— there  are  many  men  in  the  modern  Church  who  thus 
accept  the  central  message  of  the  Bible  and  yet  believe 
that  the  message  has  come  to  us  merely  on  the  authority 
of  trustworthy  witnesses  unaided  in  their  literary  work  by 
any  supernatural  guidance  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  There 
are  many  who  believe  that  the  Bible  is  right  at  the  central 
point,  in  its  account  of  the  redeeming  work  of  Christ,  and 
yet  believe  that  it  contains  many  errors.  Such  men  are 
not  really  liberals,  but  Christians ;  because  they  have 
accepted  as  true  the  message  upon  which  Christianity 
depends.  A  great  gulf  separates  them  from  those  who 
reject  the  supernatural  act  of  God  with  which  Christian¬ 
ity  stands  or  falls. 

It  is  another  question,  however,  whether  the  mediating 
view  of  the  Bible  which  is  thus  maintained  is  logically  ten¬ 
able,  the  trouble  being  that  our  Lord  Himself  seems  to 
have  held  the  high  view  of  the  Bible  which  is  here  being 
rejected.  Certainly  it  is  another  question — and  a  ques¬ 
tion  which  the  present  writer  would  answer  with  an  em¬ 
phatic  negative — whether  the  panic  about  the  Bible,  which 
gives  rise  to  such  concessions,  is  at  all  justified  by  the 
facts.  If  the  Christian  make  full  use  of  his  Christian 
privileges,  he  finds  the  seat  of  authority  in  the  whole 


76  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

Bible,  which  he  regards  as  no  mere  word  of  man  but  as 
the  very  Word  of  God. 

Very  different  is  the  view  of  modern  liberalism.  The 
modern  liberal  rejects  not  only  the  doctrine  of  plenary 
inspiration,  but  even  such  respect  for  the  Bible  as  would 
be  proper  over  against  any  ordinarily  trustworthy  book. 
But  what  is  substituted  for  the  Christian  view  of  the 
Bible?  What  is  the  liberal  view  as  to  the  seat  of  authority 
in  religion?  1 

The  impression  is  sometimes  produced  that  the  modern 
liberal  substitutes  for  the  authority  of  the  Bible  the 
authority  of  Christ.  He  cannot  accept,  he  says,  what  he 
regards  as  the  perverse  moral  teaching  of  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment  or  the  sophistical  arguments  of  Paul.  But  he 
regards  himself  as  being  the  true  Christian  because, 
rejecting  the  rest  of  the  Bible,  he  depends  upon  Jesus 
alone. 

This  impression,  however,  is  utterly  false.  The  modern 
liberal  does  not  really  hold  to  the  authority  of  Jesus. 
Even  if  he  did  so,  indeed,  he  would  be  impoverishing  very 
greatly  his  knowledge  of  God  and  of  the  way  of  salvation. 
The  words  of  Jesus,  spoken  during  His  earthly  ministry, 
could  hardly  contain  all  that  we  need  to  know  about  God 
and  about  the  way  of  salvation;  for  the  meaning  of  Jesus’ 
redeeming  work  could  hardly  be  fully  set  forth  before  that 
work  was  done.  It  could  be  set  forth  indeed  by  way  of 
prophecy,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  so  set  forth  by 
Jesus  even  in  the  days  of  His  flesh.  But  the  full  explana¬ 
tion  could  naturally  be  given  only  after  the  work  was 
done.  And  such  was  actually  the  divine  method.  It  is 
doing  despite,  not  only  to  the  Spirit  of  God,  but  also  to 
Jesus  Himself,  to  regard  the  teaching  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 

1  For  what  follows,  compare  “For  Christ  or  Against  Him,”  in  The 
Presbyterian ,  for  January  20,  1921,  p.  9. 


The  Bible  77 

given  through  the  apostles,  as  at  all  inferior  in  authority 
to  the  teaching  of  Jesus. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  modern  liberal  does 
not  hold  fast  even  to  the  authority  of  Jesus.  Certainly 
he  does  not  accept  the  words  of  Jesus  as  they  are  recorded 
in  the  Gospels.  For  among  the  recorded  words  of  Jesus 
are  to  be  found  just  those  things  which  are  most  abhor¬ 
rent  to  the  modern  liberal  Church,  and  in  His  recorded 
words  Jesus  also  points  forward  to  the  fuller  revelation 
which  was  afterwards  to  be  given  through  His  apostles. 
Evidently,  therefore,  those  words  of  Jesus  which  are  to 
be  regarded  as  authoritative  by  modern  liberalism  must 
first  be  selected  from  the  mass  of  the  recorded  words  by  a 
critical  process.  The  critical  process  is  certainly  very 
difficult,  and  the  suspicion  often  arises  that  the  critic  is 
retaining  as  genuine  words  of  the  historical  Jesus  only 
those  words  which  conform  to  his  own  preconceived  ideas. 
But  even  after  the  sifting  process  has  been  completed,  the 
liberal  scholar  is  still  unable  to  accept  as  authoritative 
all  the  sayings  of  Jesus;  he  must  finally  admit  that  even 
the  “historical”  Jesus  as  reconstructed  by  modern  his¬ 
torians  said  some  things  that  are  untrue. 

So  much  is  usually  admitted.  But,  it  is  maintained, 
although  not  everything  that  Jesus  said  is  true,  His  cen¬ 
tral  “life-purpose”  is  still  to  be  regarded  as  regulative  for 
the  Church.  But  what  then  was  the  life-purpose  of  Jesus? 
According  to  the  shortest,  and  if  modern  criticism  be 
accepted,  the  earliest  of  the  Gospels,  the  Son  of  Man 
“came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister,  and  to 
give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many”  (Mark  x.  45).  Here  the 
vicarious  death  is  put  as  the  “life-purpose”  of  Jesus. 
Such  an  utterance  must  of  course  be  pushed  aside  by  the 
modern  liberal  Church.  The  truth  is  that  the  life-purpose 
of  Jesus  discovered  by  modern  liberalism  is  not  the  life- 


y\ 


78  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

purpose  of  the  real  Jesus,  but  merely  represents  those  ele¬ 
ments  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus — isolated  and  misinter¬ 
preted — which  happen  to  agree  with  the  modern  program. 
It  is  not  Jesus,  then,  who  is  the  real  authority,  but  the 
modern  principle  by  which  the  selection  within  Jesus’  re¬ 
corded  teaching  has  been  made.  Certain  isolated  ethical 
principles  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  are  accepted,  not 
at  all  because  they  are  teachings  of  Jesus,  but  because 
they  agree  with  modern  ideas. 

It  is  not  true  at  all,  then,  that  modern  liberalism  is 
based  upon  the  authority  of  Jesus.  It  is  obliged  to  reject 
a  vast  deal  that  is  absolutely  essential  in  Jesus’  example 
and  teaching — notably  His  consciousness  of  being  the 
heavenly  Messiah.  The  real  authority,  for  liberalism,  can 
only  be  “the  Christian  consciousness”  or  “Christian  expe¬ 
rience.”  But  how  shall  the  findings  of  the  Christian  con¬ 
sciousness  be  established?  Surely  not  by  a  majority  vote 
of  the  organized  Church.  Such  a  method  would  obviously 
do  away  with  all  liberty  of  conscience.  The  only  author¬ 
ity,  then,  can  be  individual  experience;  truth  can  only  be 
that  which  “helps”  the  individual  man.  Such  an  authority 
is  obviously  no  authority  at  all ;  for  individual  experience 
is  endlessly  diverse,  and  when  once  truth  is  regarded  only 
as  that  which  works  at  any  particular  time,  it  ceases  to 
be  truth.  The  result  is  an  abysmal  skepticism. 

The  Christian  man,  on  the  other  hand,  finds  in  the  Bible 
the  very  Word  of  God.  Let  it  not  be  said  that  dependence 
upon  a  book  is  a  dead  or  an  artificial  thing.  The  Refor¬ 
mation  of  the  sixteenth  century  was  founded  upon  the 
authority  of  the  Bible,  yet  it  set  the  world  aflame. 
Dependence  upon  a  word  of  man  would  be  slavish,  but 
dependence  upon  God’s  word  is  life.  Dark  and  gloomy 
would  be  the  world,  if  we  were  left  to  our  own  devices,  and 
had  no  blessed  Word  of  God.  The  Bible,  to  the  Christian, 


The  Bible  79 

is  not  a  burdensome  law,  but  the  very  Magna  Charta  of 
Christian  liberty. 

It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  liberalism  is  totally  different 
from  Christianity,  for  the  foundation  is  different.  Chris¬ 
tianity  is  founded  upon  the  Bible.  It  bases  upon  the  Bible 
both  its  thinking  and  its  life.  Liberalism  on  the  other 
hand  is  founded  upon  the  shifting  emotions  of  sinful  men. 


CHAPTER  V 


CHRIST 

Three  points  of  difference  between  liberalism  and 
Christianity  have  been  noticed  so  far.  The  two  religions 
are  different  with  regard  to  the  presuppositions  of  the 
Christian  message,  the  view  of  God  and  the  view  of  man ; 
and  they  are  also  different  with  regard  to  their  estimate  of 
the  Book  in  which  the  message  is  contained.  It  is  not  sur¬ 
prising,  then,  that  they  differ  fundamentally  with  regard 
to  the  message  itself.  But  before  the  message  is  consid¬ 
ered,  we  must  consider  the  Person  upon  whom  the  message 
is  based.  The  Person  is  Jesus.  And  in  their  attitude 
toward  Jesus,  liberalism  and  Christianity  are  sharply 
opposed. 

The  Christian  attitude  toward  Jesus  appears  in  the 
whole  New  Testament.  In  examining  the  New  Testament 
witness  it  has  become  customary  in  recent  years  to  begin 
with  the  Epistles  of  Paul.1  This  custom  is  sometimes 
based  upon  error;  it  is  sometimes  based  upon  the  view 
that  the  Epistles  of  Paul  are  “primary”  sources  of  infor¬ 
mation,  while  the  Gospels  are  considered  to  be  only  “sec¬ 
ondary.”  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Gospels,  as  well  as  the 
Epistles,  are  primary  sources  of  the  highest  possible  value. 
But  the  custom  of  beginning  with  Paul  is  at  least  con¬ 
venient.  Its  convenience  is  due  to  the  large  measure  of 
agreement  which  prevails  with  regard  to  the  Pauline  Epis- 

1  This  method  of  approach  has  been  followed  by  the  present  writer 
in  The  Origin  of  Paul’s  Religion ,  1921. 

80 


Christ 


81 


ties.  About  the  date  and  authorship  of  the  Gospels  there 
is  debate ;  but  with  regard  to  the  authorship  and  approxi¬ 
mate  date  of  the  principal  epistles  of  Paul  all  serious 
historians,  whether  Christian  or  non-Christian,  are  agreed. 
It  is  universally  admitted  that  the  chief  of  the  extant 
epistles  attributed  to  Paul  were  really  written  by  a  man 
of  the  first  Christian  generation,  who  was  himself  a  con¬ 
temporary  of  Jesus  and  had  come  into  personal  contact 
with  certain  of  Jesus’  intimate  friends.  What,  then,  was 
the  attitude  of  this  representative  of  the  first  Christian 
generation  toward  Jesus  of  Nazareth? 

The  answer  cannot  be  at  all  in  doubt.  The  apostle 
Paul  clearly  stood  always  toward  Jesus  in  a  truly  reli¬ 
gious  relationship.  Jesus  was  not  for  Paul  merely  an 
example  for  faith;  He  was  primarily  the  object  of  faith. 
The  religion  of  Paul  did  not  consist  in  having  faith  in 
God  like  the  faith  which  Jesus  had  in  God;  it  consisted 
rather  in  having  faith  in  Jesus.  An  appeal  to  the  example 
of  Jesus  is  not  indeed  absent  from  the  Pauline  Epistles, 
and  certainly  it  was  not  absent  from  Paul’s  life.  The 
example  of  Jesus  was  found  by  Paul,  moreover,  not  merely 
in  the  acts  of  incarnation  and  atonement  but  even  in  the 
daily  life  of  Jesus  in  Palestine.  Exaggeration  with  regard 
to  this  matter  should  be  avoided.  Plainly  Paul  knew  far 
more  about  the  life  of  Jesus  than  in  the  Epistles  he  has 
seen  fit  to  tell;  plainly  the  Epistles  do  not  begin  to  con¬ 
tain  all  the  instruction  which  Paul  had  given  to  the 
Churches  at  the  commencement  of  their  Christian  life. 
But  even  after  exaggerations  have  been  avoided,  the  fact 
is  significant  enough.  The  plain  fact  is  that  imitation  of 
Jesus,  important  though  it  was  for  Paul,  was  swallowed 
up  by  something  far  more  important  still.  Not  the  exam¬ 
ple  of  Jesus,  but  the  redeeming  work  of  Jesus,  was  the 
primary  thing  for  Paul.  The  religion  of  Paul  was  not 


82  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

primarily  faith  in  God  like  Jesus’  faith;  it  was  faith  in 
Jesus;  Paul  committed  to  Jesus  without  reserve  the  eter¬ 
nal  destinies  of  his  soul.  That  is  what  we  mean  when  we 
say  that  Paul  stood  in  a  truly  religious  relation  to  Jesus. 

But  Paul  was  not  the  first  to  stand  in  this  religious  rela¬ 
tion  to  Jesus.  Evidently,  at  this  decisive  point,  he  was 
only  continuing  an  attitude  toward  Jesus  which  had 
already  been  assumed  by  those  who  had  been  Christians 
before  him.  Paul  was  not  indeed  led  to  assume  that  atti¬ 
tude  by  the  persuasions  of  the  earlier  disciples ;  he  was 
converted  by  the  Lord  Himself  on  the  road  to  Damascus. 
But  the  faith  so  induced  was  in  essentials  like  the  faith 
which  had  already  prevailed  among  the  earlier  disciples. 
Indeed,  an  account  of  the  redeeming  work  of  Christ  is  des¬ 
ignated  by  Paul  as  something  that  he  had  “received” ;  and 
that  account  had  evidently  been  accompanied  already  in 
the  primitive  Church  by  trust  in  the  Redeemer.  Paul  was 
not  the  first  who  had  faith  in  Jesus,  as  distinguished  from 
faith  in  God  like  the  faith  which  Jesus  had;  Paul  was  not 
the  first  to  make  Jesus  the  object  of  faith. 

So  much  will  no  doubt  be  admitted  by  all.  But  who 
were  the  predecessors  of  Paul  in  making  Jesus  the  object 
of  faith?  The  obvious  answer  has  always  been  that  they 
were  the  primitive  disciples  in  Jerusalem,  and  that  answer 
really  stands  abundantly  firm.  A  strange  attempt  has 
indeed  been  made  in  recent  years,  by  Bousset  and  Heit- 
miiller,  to  cast  doubt  upon  it.  What  Paul  “received,”  it 
has  been  suggested,  was  received,  not  from  the  primitive 
Jerusalem  Church,  but  from  such  Christian  communities 
as  the  one  at  Antioch.  But  this  attempt  at  interposing  an 
extra  link  between  the  Jerusalem  Church  and  Paul  has 
resulted  in  failure.  The  Epistles  really  provide  abundant 
information  as  to  Paul’s  relations  to  Jerusalem.  Paul 
was  deeply  interested  in  the  Jerusalem  Church;  in  oppo- 


Christ 


83 


sition  to  his  Judaizing  opponents,  who  had  in  certain  mat¬ 
ters  appealed  to  the  original  apostles  against  him,  he 
emphasizes  his  agreement  with  Peter  and  the  rest.  But 
even  the  Judaizers  had  had  no  objection  to  Paul’s  way  of 
regarding  Jesus  as  the  object  of  faith;  about  that  matter 
there  is  not  in  the  Epistles  the  least  suspicion  of  any 
debate.  About  the  place  of  the  Mosaic  law  in  the 
Christian  life  there  was  discussion,  though  even  with 
regard  to  that  matter  the  Judaizers  were  entirely  unjus¬ 
tified  in  appealing  to  the  original  apostles  against  Paul. 
But  with  regard  to  the  attitude  toward  Jesus  the  original 
apostles  had  evidently  given  not  even  the  slightest  color 
for  an  appeal  to  them  against  the  teaching  of  Paul.  Evi¬ 
dently  in  making  Jesus  the  object  of  religious  faith — the 
thing  that  was  the  heart  and  soul  of  Paul’s  religion — Paul 
was  in  no  disagreement  with  those  who  had  been  apostles 
before  him.  Had  there  been  such  disagreement,  the  “right* 
hand  of  fellowship,”  which  the  pillars  of  the  Jerusalem 
Church  gave  to  Paul  (Gal.  ii.  9),  would  have  been  impos¬ 
sible.  The  facts  are  really  too  plain.  The  whole  of  early 
Christian  history  is  a  hopeless  riddle  unless  the  Jerusalem 
Church,  as  well  as  Paul,  made  Jesus  the  object  of  religious 
faith.  Primitive  Christianity  certainly  did  not  consist  in 
the  mere  imitation  of  Jesus. 

But  was  this  “faith  in  Jesus”  justified  by  the  teaching 
of  Jesus  Himself?  The  question  has  really  been  answered 
in  Chapter  II.  It  was  there  shown  that  Jesus  most  cer¬ 
tainly  did  not  keep  His  Person  out  of  His  gospel,  but  on 
the  contrary  presented  Himself  as  the  Saviour  of  men. 
The  demonstration  of  that  fact  was  the  highest  merit  of 
the  late  James  Denney.  His  work  on  “Jesus  and  the  Gos¬ 
pel”  is  faulty  in  some  respects ;  it  is  marred  by  an  undue 
concessiveness  toward  some  modern  types  of  criticism. 
But  just  because  of  its  concessiveness  with  regard  to  many 


8  4 


Christianity  and  Liberalism 

important  matters,  its  main  thesis  stands  all  the  more 
firm.  Denney  has  shown  that  no  matter  what  view  be 
taken  of  the  sources  underlying  the  Gospels,  and  no  mat¬ 
ter  what  elements  in  the  Gospels  be  rejected  as  secondary, 
still  even  the  supposed  “historical  Jesus,”  as  He  is  left 
after  the  critical  process  is  done,  plainly  presented  Him¬ 
self,  not  merely  as  an  example  for  faith,  but  as  the  object 
of  faith. 

It  may  be  added,  moreover,  that  Jesus  did  not  invite 
the  confidence  of  men  by  minimizing  the  load  which  He 
offered  to  bear.  He  did  not  say:  “Trust  me  to  give  you 
acceptance  with  God,  because  acceptance  with  God  is  not 
difficult ;  God  does  not  regard  sin  so  seriously  after  all.” 
On  the  contrary  Jesus  presented  the  wrath  of  God  in  a 
more  awful  way  than  it  was  afterwards  presented  by  His 
disciples;  it  was  Jesus — Jesus  whom  modern  liberals  rep¬ 
resent  as  a  mild-mannered  exponent  of  an  indiscriminating 
love — it  was  Jesus  who  spoke  of  the  outer  darkness  and 
the  everlasting  fire,  of  the  sin  that  shall  not  be  forgiven 
either  in  this  world  or  in  that  which  is  to  come.  There  is 
nothing  in  Jesus*  teaching  about  the  character  of  God 
which  in  itself  can  evoke  trust.  On  the  contrary  the 
awful  presentation  can  give  rise,  in  the  hearts  of  us  sin¬ 
ners,  only  to  despair.  Trust  arises  only  when  we  attencf> 
to  God’s  way  of  salvation.  And  that  way  is  found  in 
Jesus.  Jesus  did  not  invite  the  confidence  of  men  by  a 
minimizing  presentation  of  what  was  necessary  in  order 
that  sinners  might  stand  faultless  before  the  awful  throne 
of  God.  On  the  contrary,  he  invited  confidence  by  the 
presentation  of  His  own  wondrous  Person.  Great  was 
the  guilt  of  sin,  but  Jesus  was  greater  still.  God,  accord¬ 
ing  to  Jesus,  was  a  loving  Father;  but  He  was  a  loving 
Father,  not  of  the  sinful  world,  but  of  those  whom  He 
Himself  had  brought  into  His  Kingdom  through  the  Son. 


Christ 


85 


The  truth  is,  the  witness  of  the  New  Testament,  with 
regard  to  Jesus  as  the  object  of  faith,  is  an  absolutely 
unitary  witness.  The  thing  is  rooted  far  too  deep  in  the 
records  of  primitive  Christianity  ever  to  be  removed  by 
any  critical  process.  The  Jesus  spoken  of  in  the  New 
Testament  was  no  mere  teacher  of  righteousness,  no  mere 
pioneer  in  a  new  type  of  religious  life,  but  One  who  was 
regarded,  and  regarded  Himself,  as  the  Saviour  whom 
men  could  trust. 

But  by  modern  liberalism  He  is  regarded  in  a  totally 
different  way.  Christians  stand  in  a  religious  relation  to 
Jesus;  liberals  do  not  stand  in  a  religious  relation  to 
Jesus — what  difference  could  be  more  profound  than  that? 
The  modern  liberal  preacher  reverences  Jesus;  he  has  the 
name  of  Jesus  forever  on  his  lips ;  he  speaks  of  Jesus  as 
the  supreme  revelation  of  God ;  he  enters,  or  tries  to 
enter,  into  the  religious  life  of  Jesus.  But  he  does  not 
stand  in  a  religious  relation  to  Jesus.  Jesus  for  him  is 
an  example  for  faith,  not  the  object  of  faith.  The  modern 
liberal  tries  to  have  faith  in  God  like  the  faith  which  he 
supposes  Jesus  had  in  God;  but  he  does  not  have  faith  in 
Jesus. 

According  to  modern  liberalism,  in  other  words,  Jesus 
was  the  Founder  of  Christianity  because  He  was  the  first 
Christian,  and  Christianity  consists  in  maintenance  of  the 
religious  life  which  Jesus  instituted. 

But  was  Jesus  really  a  Christian?  Or,  to  put  the  same 
question  in  another  way,  are  we  able  or  ought  we  as 
Christians  to  enter  in  every  respect  into  the  experience  of 
Jesus  and  make  Him  in  every  respect  our  example?  Cer¬ 
tain  difficulties  arise  with  regard  to  this  question. 

The  first  difficulty  appears  in  the  Messianic  conscious¬ 
ness  of  Jesus.  The  Person  whom  we  are  asked  to  take  as 
our  example  thought  that  He  was  the  heavenly  Son  of 


86  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

Man  who  was  to  be  the  final  Judge  of  all  the  earth.  Can 
we  imitate  Him  there?  The  trouble  is  not  merely  that 
Jesus  undertook  a  special  mission  which  can  never  be  ours. 
That  difficulty  might  conceivably  be  overcome;  we  might 
still  take  Jesus  as  our  example  by  adapting  to  our  station 
in  life  the  kind  of  character  which  He  displayed  in  His. 
But  another  difficulty  is  more  serious.  The  real  trouble  is 
that  the  lofty  claim  of  Jesus,  if,  as  modern  liberalism  is 
constrained  to  believe,  the  claim  was  unjustified,  places  a 
moral  stain  upon  Jesus’  character.  What  shall  be  thought 
of  a  human  being  who  lapsed  so  far  from  the  path  of 
humility  and  sanity  as  to  believe  that  the  eternal  destinies 
of  the  world  were  committed  into  His  hands?  The  truth 
is  that  if  Jesus  be  merely  an  example,  He  is  not  a  worthy 
example ;  for  He  claimed  to  be  far  more. 

Against  this  objection  modern  liberalism  has  usually 
adopted  a  policy  of  palliation.  The  Messianic  conscious¬ 
ness,  it  is  said,  arose  late  in  the  experience  of  Jesus,  and 
was  not  really  fundamental.  What  was  really  fundamen¬ 
tal,  the  liberal  historians  continue,  was  the  consciousness 
of  sonship  toward  God — a  consciousness  which  may  be 
shared  by  every  humble  disciple.  The  Messianic  con¬ 
sciousness,  on  this  view,  arose  only  as  an  afterthought. 
Jesus  was  conscious,  it  is  said,  of  standing  toward  God  in 
a  relation  of  untroubled  sonship.  But  He  discovered  that 
this  relation  was  not  shared  by  others.  He  became  aware, 
therefore,  of  a  mission  to  bring  others  into  the  place  of 
privilege  which  He  Himself  already  occupied.  That  mis¬ 
sion  made  Him  unique,  and  to  give  expression  to  His 
uniqueness  He  adopted,  late  in  His  life  and  almost  against 
His  will,  the  faulty  category  of  Messiahship. 

Many  are  the  forms  in  which  some  such  psychological 
reconstruction  of  the  life  of  Jesus  has  been  set  forth  in 
recent  years.  The  modern  world  has  devoted  its  very  best 


Christ 


87 


literary  efforts  to  this  task.  But  the  efforts  have  resulted 
in  failure.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  no  real  evidence  that 
the  reconstructed  Jesus  is  historical.  The  sources  know 
nothing  of  a  Jesus  who  adopted  the  category  of  Messiah- 
ship  late  in  life  and  against  His  will.  On  the  contrary  the 
only  Jesus  that  they  present  is  a  Jesus  who  based  the 
whole  of  His  ministry  upon  His  stupendous  claim.  In  the 
second  place,  even  if  the  modern  reconstruction  were  his¬ 
torical  it  would  not  solve  the  problem  at  all.  The  problem 
is  a  moral  and  psychological  problem.  How  can  a  human 
being  who  lapsed  so  far  from  the  path  of  rectitude  as  to 
think  Himself  to  be  the  judge  of  all  the  earth — how  can 
such  a  human  being  be  regarded  as  the  supreme  example 
for  mankind?  It  is  absolutely  no  answer  to  the  objection 
to  say  that  Jesus  accepted  the  category  of  Messiahship 
reluctantly  and  late  in  life.  No  matter  when  He  suc¬ 
cumbed  to  temptation  the  outstanding  fact  is  that,  on  this 
view,  He  did  succumb ;  and  that  moral  defeat  places  an 
indelible  stain  upon  His  character.  No  doubt  it  is  pos¬ 
sible  to  make  excuses  for  Him,  and  many  excuses  are  as  a 
matter  of  fact  made  by  the  liberal  historians.  But  what 
has  become  then  of  the  claim  of  liberalism  to  be  truly 
Christian?  Can  a  man  for  whom  excuses  have  to  be  made 
be  regarded  as  standing  to  his  modern  critics  in  a  relation¬ 
ship  even  remotely  analogous  to  that  in  which  the  Jesus 
of  the  New  Testament  stands  to  the  Christian  Church? 

But  there  is  another  difficulty  in  the  way  of  regarding 
Jesus  as  simply  the  first  Christian.  This  second  difficulty 
concerns  the  attitude  of  Jesus  toward  sin.  If  Jesus  is 
separated  from  us  by  his  Messianic  consciousness,  He  is 
separated  from  us  even  more  fundamentally  by  the 
absence  in  Him  of  a  sense  of  sin. 

With  respect  to  the  sinlessness  of  Jesus  modern  liberal 
historians  find  themselves  in  a  quandary.  To  affirm  that 


88  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

He  was  sinless  means  to  relinquish  much  of  that  ease  of 
defending  liberal  religion  which  the  liberal  historians  are 
anxious  to  preserve,  and  involves  hazardous  assumptions 
with  regard  to  the  nature  of  sin.  For  if  sin  is  merely 
imperfection,  how  can  an  absolute  negation  of  it  be  ven¬ 
tured  upon  within  a  process  of  nature  which  is  supposed 
to  be  ever  changing  and  ever  advancing?  The  very  idea 
of  “sinlessness,”  much  more  the  reality  of  it,  requires  us 
to  conceive  of  sin  as  transgression  of  a  fixed  law  or  a  fixed 
standard,  and  involves  the  conception  of  an  absolute  good¬ 
ness.  But  to  that  conception  of  an  absolute  goodness  the 
modern  evolutionary  view  of  the  world  properly  speaking 
has  no  right.  At  any  rate,  if  such  absolute  goodness  is  to 
be  allowed  to  intrude  at  a  definite  point  in  the  present 
world-process,  we  are  involved  in  that  supernaturalism 
which,  as  will  be  observed  later,  is  the  very  thing  that  the 
modern  reconstruction  of  Christianity  is  most  anxious  to 
avoid.  Once  affirm  that  Jesus  was  sinless  and  all  other 
men  sinful,  and  you  have  entered  into  irreconcilable  conflict 
with  the  whole  modern  point  of  view.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  there  are  scientific  objections,  from  the  liberal  point  of 
view,  against  an  affirmation  of  the  sinlessness  of  Jesus, 
there  are  also  very  obvious  religious  objections  against  an 
opposite  affirmation  of  His  sinfulness — difficulties  for 
modern  liberalism  as  well  as  for  the  theology  of  the  his¬ 
toric  Church.  If  Jesus  was  sinful  like  other  men,  the  last 
remnant  of  his  uniqueness  would  seem  to  have  disappeared, 
and  all  continuity  with  the  previous  development  of 
Christianity  would  seem  to  be  destroyed. 

In  the  face  of  this  quandary  the  modern  liberal  his¬ 
torian  is  inclined  to  avoid  rash  assertions.  He  will  not  be 
sure  that  when  Jesus  taught  His  disciples  to  say,  “For¬ 
give  us  our  debts,”  He  did  not  pray  that  prayer  with 
them ;  on  the  other  hand  he  will  not  really  face  the  results 


Christ 


89 


that  logically  follow  from  his  doubt.  In  his  perplexity,  he 
is  apt  to  be  content  with  the  assertion  that  whether  Jesus 
was  sinless  or  not  He  was  at  any  rate  immeasurably  above 
the  rest  of  us.  Whether  Jesus  was  “sinless”  is  an  aca¬ 
demic  question,  we  shall  probably  be  told,  that  concerns 
the  mysteries  of  the  absolute;  what  we  need  to  do  is  to 
bow  in  simple  reverence  before  a  holiness  which  compared 
with  our  impurity  is  as  a  white  light  in  a  dark  place. 

That  such  avoidance  of  the  difficulty  is  unsatisfactory 
hardly  requires  proof ;  obviously  the  liberal  theologian  is 
trying  to  obtain  the  religious  advantages  of  an  affirmation 
of  sinlessness  in  Jesus  at  the  same  time  that  he  obtains 
the  supposed  scientific  advantages  of  its  denial.  But  just 
for  the  moment  we  are  not  concerned  with  the  question  at 
all ;  we  are  not  concerned  to  determine  whether  as  a 
matter  of  fact  Jesus  was  sinless  or  no.  What  we  need  to 
observe  just  now  is  that  whether  Jesus  was  sinful  or  sin¬ 
less  at  any  rate  in  the  record  of  His  life  which  has  actu¬ 
ally  come  into  our  hands  He  displays  no  consciousness  of 
sin.  Even  if  the  words  “Why  callest  thou  me  good?” 
meant  that  Jesus  denied  the  attribute  of  goodness  to  Him¬ 
self — which  they  do  not — it  would  still  remain  true  that 
He  never  in  His  recorded  words  deals  in  any  intelligible 
way  with  sin  in  His  own  life.  In  the  account  of  the  temp¬ 
tation  we  are  told  how  He  kept  sin  from  entering,  but 
never  how  He  dealt  with  it  after  its  entrance  had  been 
effected.  The  religious  experience  of  Jesus,  as  it  is  re¬ 
corded  in  the  Gospels,  in  other  words,  gives  us  no 
information  about  the  way  in  which  sin  shall  be  removed. 

Yet  in  the  Gospels  Jesus  is  represented  constantly  as 
dealing  with  the  problem  of  sin.  He  always  assumes  that 
other  men  are  sinful;  yet  He  never  finds  sin  in  Himself. 
A  stupendous  difference  is  found  here  between  Jesus’ 
experience  and  ours. 


90  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

That  difference  prevents  the  religious  experience  of 
Jesus  from  serving  as  the  sole  basis  of  the  Christian  life. 
For  clearly  if  Christianity  is  anything  it  is  a  way  of  get¬ 
ting  rid  of  sin.  At  any  rate,  if  it  is  not  that  it  is  useless ; 
for  all  men  have  sinned.  And  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  was 
that  from  the  very  beginning.  Whether  the  beginning  of 
Christian  preaching  be  put  on  the  day  of  Pentecost  or 
when  Jesus  first  taught  in  Galilee,  in  either  case  one  of  its 
first  words  was  “Repent.”  Throughout  the  whole  New 
Testament  the  Christianity  of  the  primitive  Church  is  rep¬ 
resented  clearly  as  a  way  of  getting  rid  of  sin.  But  if 
Christianity  is  a  way  of  getting  rid  of  sin,  then  Jesus  was 
not  a  Christian;  for  Jesus,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  had  no 
sin  to  get  rid  of. 

Why  then  did  the  early  Christians  call  themselves  dis¬ 
ciples  of  Jesus,  why  did  they  connect  themselves  with  His 
name?  The  answer  is  not  difficult.  They  connected  them¬ 
selves  with  His  name  not  because  He  was  their  example  in 
their  ridding  themselves  of  sin,  but  because  their  method 
of  ridding  themselves  of  sin  was  by  means  of  Him.  It 
was  what  Jesus  did  for  them,  and  not  primarily  the 
example  of  His  own  life,  which  made  them  Christians. 
Such  is  the  witness  of  all  our  primitive  records.  The 
record  is  fullest,  as  has  already  been  observed,  in  the  case 
of  the  Apostle  Paul;  clearly  Paul  regarded  himself  as 
saved  from  sin  by  what  Jesus  did  for  him  on  the  cross. 
But  Paul  did  not  stand  alone.  “Christ  died  for  our  sins' 9 
was  not  something  that  Paul  had  originated;  it  was 
something  he  had  “received.”  The  benefits  of  that  saving 
work  of  Christ,  according  to  the  primitive  Church,  were  to 
be  received  by  faith ;  even  if  the  classic  formulation  of  this 
conviction  should  prove  to  be  due  to  Paul,  the  conviction 
itself  clearly  goes  back  to  the  very  beginning.  The  primi¬ 
tive  Christians  felt  themselves  in  need  of  salvation.  How, 


Christ 


91 


they  asked,  should  the  load  of  sin  be  removed?  Their 
answer  is  perfectly  plain.  They  simply  trusted  Jesus  to 
remove  it.  In  other  words  they  had  “faith”  in  Him. 

Here  again  we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  the  signifi¬ 
cant  fact  which  was  noticed  at  the  beginning  of  this  chap¬ 
ter;  the  early  Christians  regarded  Jesus  not  merely  as  an 
example  for  faith  but  primarily  as  the  object  of  faith. 
Christianity  from  the  beginning  was  a  means  of  getting 
rid  of  sin  by  trust  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  But  if  Jesus 
was  thus  the  object  of  Christian  faith,  He  Himself  was  no 
more  a  Christian  than  God  is  a  religious  being.  God  is 
the  object  of  all  religion,  He  is  absolutely  necessary  to  all 
religion ;  but  He  Himself  is  the  only  being  in  the  universe 
who  can  never  in  His  own  nature  be  religious.  So  it  is 
with  Jesus  as  related  to  Christian  faith.  Christian  faith 
is  trust  reposed  in  Him  for  the  removal  of  sin ;  He  could 
not  repose  trust  (in  the  sense  with  which  we  are  here  con¬ 
cerned)  in  Himself;  therefore  He  was  certainly  not  a 
Christian.  If  we  are  looking  for  a  complete  illustration 
of  the  Christian  life  we  cannot  find  it  in  the  religious 
experience  of  Jesus. 

This  conclusion  needs  to\  be  guarded  against  two 
objections. 

In  the  first  place,  it  will  be  said,  are  we  not  failing  to 
do  justice  to  the  true  humanity  of  Jesus,  which  is  affirmed 
by  the  creeds  of  the  Church  as  well  as  by  the  modern  the¬ 
ologians?  When  we  say  that  Jesus  could  not  illustrate 
Christian  faith  any  more  than  God  can  be  religious,  are 
we  not  denying  to  Jesus  that  religious  experience  which 
is  a  necessary  element  in  true  humanity?  Must  not  Jesus, 
if  He  be  true  man,  have  been  more  than  the  object  of  reli¬ 
gious  faith;  must  He  not  have  had  a  religion  of  His  own? 
The  answer  is  not  far  to  seek.  Certainly  Jesus  had  a 
religion  of  His  own;  His  prayer  was  real  prayer,  His 


92  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

faith  was  real  religious  faith.  His  relation  to  His  heav¬ 
enly  Father  was  not  merely  that  of  a  child  to  a  father; 
it  was  that  of  a  man  to  his  God.  Certainly  Jesus  had  a 
religion;  without  it  His  humanity  would  indeed  have  been 
but  incomplete.  Without  doubt  Jesus  had  a  religion;  the 
fact  is  of  the  utmost  importance.  But  it  is  equally  im¬ 
portant  to  observe  that  that  religion  which  Jesus  had 
was  not  Christianity.  Christianity  is  a  way  of  getting 
rid  of  sin,  and  Jesus  was  without  sin.  His  religion  was  a 
religion  of  Paradise,  not  a  religion  of  sinful  humanity. 
It  was  a  religion  to  which  we  may  perhaps  in  some  sort 
attain  in  heaven,  when  the  process  of  our  purification  is 
complete  (though  even  then  the  memory  of  redemption 
will  never  leave  us)  ;  but  certainly  it  is  not  a  religion  with 
which  we  can  begin.  The  religion  of  Jesus  was  a  religion 
of  untroubled  sonship ;  Christianity  is  a  religion  of  the 
attainment  of  sonship  by  the  redeeming  work  of  Christ. 

But  if  that  be  true,  it  may  be  objected,  in  the  second 
place,  that  Jesus  is  being  removed  far  from  us,  that  on 
our  view  He  is  no  longer  our  Brother  and  our  Example. 
The  objection  is  welcome,  since  it  helps  us  to  avoid  mis¬ 
understandings  and  exaggerations. 

Certainly  if  our  zeal  for  the  greatness  and  uniqueness 
of  Jesus  led  us  so  to  separate  Him  from  us  that  He  could 
no  longer  be  touched  with  the  feeling  of  our  infirmities,  the 
result  would  be  disastrous;  Jesus*  coming  would  lose 
much  of  its  significance.  But  it  ought  to  be  observed  that 
likeness  is  not  always  necessary  to  nearness.  The  experi¬ 
ence  of  a  father  in  his  personal  relation  to  his  son  is  quite 
different  from  that  of  the  son  in  his  relation  to  his  father; 
but  just  that  very  difference  binds  father  and  son  all  the 
more  closely  together.  The  father  cannot  share  the  spe¬ 
cifically  filial  affection  of  the  son,  and  the  son  cannot 
share  the  specifically  paternal  affection  of  the  father; 


Christ 


93 


yet  no  mere  relationship  of  brotherhood,  perhaps,  could 
be  quite  so  close.  Fatherhood  and  sonship  are  comple¬ 
mentary  to  each  other ;  hence  the  dissimilarity,  but  hence 
also  the  closeness  of  the  bond.  It  may  be  somewhat  the 
same  in  the  case  of  our  relationship  to  Jesus.  If  He  were 
exactly  the  same  as  ourselves,  if  He  were  merely  our, 
Brother,  we  should  not  be  nearly  so  close  to  Him  as  we 
are  when  He  stands  to  us  in  the  relationship  of  a  Saviour. 

Nevertheless  Jesus  as  a  matter  of  fact  is  a  Brother  to 
us  as  well  as  a  Saviour — an  elder  Brother  whose  steps  we 
may  follow.  The  imitation  of  Jesus  has  a  fundamental 
place  in  Christian  life ;  it  is  perfectly  correct  to  represent 
Him  as  our  supreme  and  only  perfect  example. 

Certainly  so  far  as  the  field  of  ethics  is  concerned,  there 
can  be  no  dispute.  No  matter  what  view  may  be  taken  of 
His  origin  and  His  higher  nature,  Jesus  certainly  led  a 
true  human  life,  and  in  it  He  came  into  those  varied 
human  relationships  which  provide  opportunity  for  moral 
achievement.  His  life  of  perfect  purity  was  led  in  no  cold 
aloofness  from  the  throng  and  press ;  His  unselfish  love 
was  exercised  not  merely  in  mighty  deeds,  but  in  acts  of 
kindness  which  the  humblest  of  us  has  the  power,  if  only 
we  had  the  will,  to  imitate.  More  effective,  too,  than  all 
detail  is  the  indefinable  impression  of  the  whole;  Jesus  is 
felt  to  be  far  greater  than  any  of  His  individual  words  or 
deeds.  His  calmness,  unselfishness  and  strength  have  been 
the  wonder  of  the  ages ;  the  world  can  never  lose  the 
inspiration  of  that  radiant  example. 

Jesus  is  an  example,  moreover,  not  merely  for  the  rela¬ 
tions  of  man  to  man  but  also  for  the  relation  of  man  to 
God;  imitation  of  Him  may  extend  and  must  extend  to 
the  sphere  of  religion  as  well  as  to  that  of  ethics.  Indeed 
religion  and  ethics  in  Him  were  never  separated ;  no  single 
element  in  His  life  can  be  understood  without  reference 


94*  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

to  His  heavenly  Father.  Jesus  was  the  most  religious 
man  who  ever  lived ;  He  did  nothing  and  said  nothing  and 
thought  nothing  without  the  thought  of  God.  If  His 
example  means  anything  at  all  it  means  that  a  human  life 
without  the  conscious  presence  of  God — even  though  it  be 
a  life  of  humanitarian  service  outwardly  like  the  ministry 
of  Jesus — is  a  monstrous  perversion.  If  we  would  follow 
truly  in  Jesus*  steps,  we  must  obey  the  first  commandment 
as  well  as  the  second  that  is  like  unto  it ;  we  must  love  the 
Lord  our  God  with  all  our  heart  and  soul  and  mind  and 
strength.  The  difference  between  Jesus  and  ourselves 
serves  only  to  enforce,  certainly  not  to  invalidate,  the  les¬ 
son.  If  the  One  to  whom  all  power  was  given  needed 
refreshment  and  strengthening  in  prayer,  we  more ;  if  the 
One  to  whom  the  lilies  of  the  field  revealed  the  glory  of 
God  yet  went  into  the  sanctuary,  surely  we  need  such 
assistance  even  more  than  He;  if  the  wise  and  holy  One 
could  say  “Thy  will  be  done,”  surely  submission  is  yet 
more  in  place  for  us  whose  wisdom  is  as  the  foolishness  of 
children. 

Thus  Jesus  is  the  supreme  example  for  men.  But  the 
Jesus  who  can  serve  as  an  example  is  not  the  Jesus  of 
modern  liberal  reconstruction,  but  only  the  Jesus  of  the 
New  Testament.  The  Jesus  of  modern  liberalism  ad¬ 
vanced  stupendous  claims  which  were  not  founded  upon 
fact — such  conduct  ought  never  to  be  made  a  norm.  The 
Jesus  of  modern  liberalism  all  through  His  ministry 
employed  language  which  was  extravagant  and  absurd — 
and  it  is  only  to  be  hoped  that  imitation  of  Him  will  not 
lead  to  an  equal  extravagance  in  His  modern  disciples. 
If  the  Jesus  of  naturalistic  reconstruction  were  really 
taken  as  an  example,  disaster  would  soon  follow.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  however,  the  modern  liberal  does  not  really 
take  as  his  example  the  Jesus  of  the  liberal  Jiistopans^ 


Christ 


95 


what  he  really  does  in  practice  is  to  manufacture  as  his 
example  a  simple  exponent  of  a  non-doctrinal  religion 
whom  the  abler  historians  even  of  his  own  school  know 
never  to  have  existed  except  in  the  imagination  of  modern 
men. 

Very  different  is  the  imitation  of  the  real  Jesus — the 
Jesus  of  the  New  Testament  who  actually  lived  in  the  first 
century  of  our  era.  That  Jesus  advanced  lofty  claims; 
but  His  claims,  instead  of  being  the  extravagant  dreams  of 
an  enthusiast,  were  sober  truth.  On  His  lips,  therefore, 
language  which  in  the  reduced  Jesus  of  modern  recon¬ 
struction  would  be  frenzied  or  absurd  becomes  fraught 
with  blessing  for  mankind.  Jesus  demanded  that  those 
who  followed  Him  should  be  willing  to  break  even  the  holi¬ 
est  ties — He  said,  “If  a  man  cometh  to  me  and  hateth  not 
his  father  and  mother  ...  he  cannot  be  my  disciple,” 
and  “Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead.”  Coming  from  the 
mere  prophet  constructed  by  modern  liberalism,  those 
words  would  be  monstrous;  coming  from  the  real  Jesus, 
they  are  sublime.  How  great  was  the  mission  of  mercy 
which  justified  such  words!  And  how  wonderful  the  con¬ 
descension  of  the  eternal  Son !  How  matchless  an  example 
for  the  children  of  men!  Well  might  Paul  appeal  to  the 
example  of  the  incarnate  Saviour;  well  might  he  say,  “Let 
the  same  mind  be  in  you  wThich  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus.” 
The  imitation  of  the  real  Jesus  will  never  lead  a  man 
astray. 

But  the  example  of  Jesus  is  a  perfect  example  only  if 
He  was  justified  in  what  He  offered  to  men.  And  He 
offered,  not  primarily  guidance,  but  salvation;  He  pre¬ 
sented  Himself  as  the  object  of  men’s  faith.  That  offer  is 
rejected  by  modern  liberalism,  but  it  is  accepted  by 
Christian  men. 

There  is  a  profound  difference,  then?  iu  the  attitude 


96  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

assumed  by  modern  liberalism  and  by  Christianity  toward 
Jesus  the  Lord.  Liberalism  regards  Him  as  an  Example 
and  Guide;  Christianity,  as  a  Saviour:  liberalism  makes 
Him  an  example  for  faith;  Christianity,  the  object  of 
faith. 

This  difference  in  the  attitude  toward  Jesus  depends 
upon  a  profound  difference  as  to  the  question  who  Jesus 
was.  If  Jesus  was  only  what  the  liberal  historians  sup¬ 
pose  that  He  was,  then  trust  in  Him  would  be  out  of 
place ;  our  attitude  toward  Him  could  be  that  of  pupils 
to  a  Master  and  nothing  more.  But  if  He  was  what  the 
New  Testament  represents  Him  as  being,  then  we  can 
safely  commit  to  Him  the  eternal  destinies  of  our  souls. 
What  then  is  the  difference  between  liberalism  and 
Christianity  with  regard  to  the  person  of  our  Lord? 

The  answer  might  be  difficult  to  set  forth  in  detail. 
But  the  essential  thing  can  be  put  almost  in  a  word — lib¬ 
eralism  regards  Jesus  as  the  fairest  flower  of  humanity; 
Christianity  regards  Him  as  a  supernatural  Person. 

The  conception  of  Jesus  as  a  supernatural  Person  runs 
all  through  the  New  Testament.  In  the  Epistles  of  Paul, 
of  course,  it  is  perfectly  clear.  Without  the  slight  doubt 
Paul  separated  Jesus  from  ordinary  humanity  and  placed 
Him  on  the  side  of  God.  The  words  in  Gal.  i.  1,  “not  from 
men  nor  through  a  man  but  through  Jesus  Christ  and 
God  the  Father  who  raised  Him  from  the  dead,”  are  only 
typical  of  what  appears  everywhere  in  the  Epistles.  The 
same  contrast  between  Jesus  Christ  and  ordinary  human¬ 
ity  is  everywhere  presupposed.  Paul  does  indeed  call 
Jesus  Christ  a  man.  But  the  way  in  which  he  speaks  of 
Jesus  as  a  man  only  deepens  the  impression  which  has 
already  been  received.  Paul  speaks  of  the  humanity  of 
Jesus  apparently  as  though  the  fact  that  Jesus  was  a 
man  were  something  strange,  something  wonderful.  At 


Christ 


97 


any  rate,  the  really  outstanding  fact  is  that  in  the 
Epistles  of  Paul,  Jesus  is  everywhere  separated  from 
ordinary  humanity ;  the  deity  of  Christ  is  everywhere  pre¬ 
supposed.  It  is  a  matter  of  small  consequence  whether 
Paul  ever  applies  to  Jesus  the  Greek  word  which  is  trans¬ 
lated  “God”  in  the  English  Bible ;  certainly  it  is  very 
difficult,  in  view  of  Rom.  ix.  5,  to  deny  that  he  does. 
However  that  may  be,  the  term  “Lord,”  which  is  Paul’s 
regular  designation  of  Jesus,  is  really  just  as  much  a 
designation  of  deity  as  is  the  term  “God.”  It  was  a  desig¬ 
nation  of  deity  even  in  the  pagan  religions  with  which 
Paul’s  converts  were  familiar;  and  (what  is  far  more  im¬ 
portant)  in  the  Greek  translation  of  the  Old  Testament 
which  was  current  in  Paul’s  day  and  was  used  by  the 
Apostle  himself,  the  term  was  used  to  translate  the 
“Jahwe”  of  the  Hebrew  text.  And  Paul  does  not  hesitate 
to  apply  to  Jesus  stupendous  passages  in  the  Greek  Old 
Testament  where  the  term  Lord  thus  designates  the  God 
of  Israel.  But  what  is  perhaps  most  significant  of  all  for 
the  establishment  of  the  Pauline  teaching  about  the  Per¬ 
son  of  Christ  is  that  Paul  everywhere  stands  in  a  religious 
attitude  toward  Jesus.  He  who  is  thus  the  object  of 
religious  faith  is  surely  no  mere  man,  but  a  supernatural 
Person,  and  indeed  a  Person  who  was  God. 

Thus  Paul  regarded  Jesus  as  a  supernatural  Person. 
The  fact  would  be  surprising  if  it  stood  alone.  Paul  was 
a  contemporary  of  Jesus.  What  must  this  Jesus  have 
been  that  He  should  be  lifted  thus  quickly  above  the  limits 
of  ordinary  humanity  and  placed  upon  the  side  of  God? 

But  there  is  something  far  more  surprising  still.  The 
truly  surprising  thing  is  that  the  view  which  Paul  had  of 
Jesus  was  also  the  view  which  was  held  by  Jesus’  intimate 
friends.1  The  fact  appears  in  the  Pauline  Epistles  them- 

1  Compare  The  Origin  of  Paul’s  Religion,  1921 ,  pp.  118-137. 


98  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

selves,  to  say  nothing  of  other  evidence.  Clearly  the 
Epistles  presuppose  a  fundamental  unity  between  Paul 
and  the  original  apostles  with  regard  to  the  Person  of 
Christ;  for  if  there  had  been  any  controversy  about  this 
matter  it  would  certainly  have  been  mentioned.  Even  the 
Judaizers,  the  bitter  opponents  of  Paul,  seem  to  have 
had  no  objection  to  Paul’s  conception  of  Jesus  as  a  super¬ 
natural  Person.  The  really  impressive  thing  about 
Paul’s  view  of  Christ  is  that  it  is  not  defended.  Indeed  it 
is  hardly  presented  in  the  Epistles  in  any  systematic  way. 
Yet  it  is  everywhere  presupposed.  The  inference  is  per¬ 
fectly  plain — Paul’s  conception  of  the  Person  of  Christ 
was  a  matter  of  course  in  the  primitive  Church.  With 
regard  to  this  matter  Paul  appears  in  perfect  harmony 
with  all  Palestinian  Christians.  The  men  who  had  walked 
and  talked  with  Jesus  and  had  seen  Him  subject  to  the 
petty  limitations  of  earthly  life  agreed  with  Paul  fully 
in  regarding  Him  as  a  supernatural  Person,  seated  on 
the  throne  of  all  Being. 

Exactly  the  same  account  of  Jesus  as  that  which  is 
presupposed  by  the  Pauline  Epistles  appears  in  the  de¬ 
tailed  narrative  of  the  Gospels.  The  Gospels  agree  with 
Paul  in  presenting  Jesus  as  a  supernatural  Person,  and 
the  agreement  appears  not  in  one  or  two  of  the  Gospels, 
but  in  all  four.  The  day  is  long  past,  if  there  ever  was 
such  a  day,  when  the  Gospel  of  John,  as  presenting  a 
divine  Jesus,  could  be  contrasted  with  the  Gospel  of  Mark, 
as  presenting  a  human  Jesus.  On  the  contrary,  all  four 
Gospels  clearly  present  a  Person  lifted  far  above  the  level 
of  ordinary  humanity ;  and  the  Gospel  of  Mark,  the 
shortest  and  according  to  modern  criticism  the  earliest 
of  the  Gospels,  renders  particularly  prominent  Jesus’ 
superhuman  works  of  power.  In  all  four  Gospels  Jesus 
appears  possessed  of  a  sovereign  power  over  the  forces  of 


Christ 


99 


nature;  in  all  four  Gospels,  as  in  the  whole  New  Testa¬ 
ment,  He  appears  clearly  as  a  supernatural  Person.1 

But  what  is  meant  by  a  “supernatural  Person” ;  what  is 
meant  by  the  supernatural? 

The  conception  of  the  “supernatural”  is  closely  con¬ 
nected  with  that  of  “miracle” ;  a  miracle  is  the  supernatu¬ 
ral  manifesting  itself  in  the  external  world.  But  what  is 
the  supernatural?  Many  definitions  have  been  proposed. 
But  only  one  definition  is  really  correct.  A  supernatural 
event  is  one  that  takes  place  by  the  immediate,  as  dis¬ 
tinguished  from  the  mediate,  power  of  God.  The  possi¬ 
bility  of  the  supernatural,  if  supernatural  be  defined  in 
this  way,  presupposes  two  things — it  presupposes  (1)  the 
existence  of  a  personal  God,  and  (2)  the  existence  of  a 
real  order  of  nature.  Without  the  existence  of  a  personal 
God,  there  could  be  no  purposive  entrance  of  God’s  power 
into  the  order  of  the  world;  and  without  the  real  exist¬ 
ence  of  an  order  of  nature  there  could  be  no  distinction 
between  natural  events  and  those  that  are  above  nature — 
all  events  would  be  supernatural,  or  rather  the  word 
“supernatural”  would  have  no  meaning  at  all.  The  dis¬ 
tinction  between  “natural”  and  “supernatural”  does  not 
mean,  indeed,  that  nature  is  independent  of  God;  it  does 
not  mean  that  while  God  brings  to  pass  supernatural 
events,  natural  events  are  not  brought  to  pass  by  Him. 
On  the  contrary,  the  believer  in  the  supernatural  regards 
everything  that  is  done  as  being  the  work  of  God.  Only, 
he  believes  that  in  the  events  called  natural,  God  uses 
means,  whereas  in  the  events  called  supernatural  He  uses 
no  means,  but  puts  forth  His  creative  power.  The  dis¬ 
tinction  between  the  natural  and  the  supernatural,  in 
other  words,  is  simply  the  distinction  between  God’s  works 
of  providence  and  God’s  work  of  creation;  a  miracle  is  a 
1  Compare  History  and  Faith ,  1915,  pp.  5f. 


100  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

work  of  creation  just  as  truly  as  the  mysterious  event 
which  produced  the  world. 

This  conception  of  the  supernatural  depends  absolutely 
upon  a  theistic  view  of  God.  Theism  is  to  be  distinguished 
(1)  from  deism  and  (2)  from  pantheism. 

According  to  the  deistic  view,  God  set  the  world  going 
like  a  machine  and  then  left  it  independent  of  Himself. 
Such  a  view  is  inconsistent  with  the  actuality  of  the  super¬ 
natural  ;  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  presuppose  a  God  who 
is  constantly  watching  over  and  guiding  the  course  of  this 
world.  The  miracles  of  the  Bible  are  not  arbitrary  in¬ 
trusions  of  a  Power  that  is  without  relation  to  the  world, 
but  are  evidently  intended  to  accomplish  results  within 
the  order  of  nature.  Indeed  the  natural  and  the  super¬ 
natural  are  blended,  in  the  miracles  of  the  Bible,  in  a  way 
entirely  incongruous  with  the  deistic  conception  of  God. 
In  the  feeding  of  the  five  thousand,  for  example,  who  shall 
say  what  part  the  five  loaves  and  two  fishes  had  in  the 
event ;  who  shall  say  where  the  natural  left  off  and  the 
supernatural  began?  Yet  that  event,  if  any  other,  tran¬ 
scended  the  order  of  nature.  The  miracles  of  the  Bible, 
then,  are  not  the  work  of  a  God  who  has  no  part  in  the 
course  of  nature ;  they  are  the  work  of  a  God  who  through 
His  works  of  Providence  is  “preserving  and  governing  all 
His  creatures  and  all  their  actions.” 

But  the  conception  of  the  supernatural  is  inconsistent, 
not  only  with  deism,  but  also  with  pantheism.  Pantheism 
identifies  God  with  the  totality  of  nature.  It  is  incon¬ 
ceivable,  then,  on  the  pantheistic  view  that  anything 
should  enter  into  the  course  of  nature  from  outside.  A 
similar  incongruity  with  the  supernatural  appears  also 
in  certain  forms  of  idealism,  which  deny  real  existence  to 
the  forces  of  nature.  If  what  seems  to  be  connected  in 
nature  is  really  only  connected  in  the  divine  mind,  then  it 


Christ 


101 


is  difficult  to  make  any  distinction  between  those  opera¬ 
tions  of  the  divine  mind  which  appear  as  miracles  and 
those  which  appear  as  natural  events.  Again,  it  has  often 
been  said  that  all  events  are  works  of  creation.  On  this 
view,  it  is  only  a  concession  to  popular  phraseology  to  say 
that  one  body  is  attracted  toward  another  in  accordance 
with  a  law  of  gravitation ;  what  really  ought  to  be  said  is 
that  when  two  bodies  are  in  proximity  under  certain  condi¬ 
tions  they  come  together.  Certain  phenomena  in  nature, 
on  this  view,  are  always  followed  by  certain  other  phe¬ 
nomena,  and  it  is  really  only  this  regularity  of  sequence 
which  is  indicated  by  the  assertion  that  the  former  phe¬ 
nomena  “cause”  the  latter;  the  only  real  cause  is  in  all 
cases  God.  On  the  basis  of  this  view,  there  can  be  no 
distinction  between  events  wrought  by  the  immediate 
power  of  God  and  those  that  are  not ;  for  on  this  view  all 
events  are  so  wrought.  Against  such  a  view,  those  who 
accept  our  definition  of  miracle  will  naturally  accept  the 
common-sense  notion  of  cause.  God  is  always  the  first 
cause,  but  there  are  truly  second  causes ;  and  they  are  the 
means  which  God  uses,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  the  world, 
for  the  accomplishment  of  His  ends.  It  is  the  exclusion  of 
such  second  causes  which  makes  an  event  a  miracle. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  actuality  of  miracles 
would  destroy  the  basis  of  science.  Science,  it  is  said,  is 
founded  upon  the  regularity  of  sequences ;  it  assumes  that 
if  certain  conditions  within  the  course  of  nature  are  given, 
certain  other  conditions  will  always  follow.  But  if  there 
is  to  be  any  intrusion  of  events  which  by  their  very  defini¬ 
tion  are  independent  of  all  previous  conditions,  then,  it  is 
said,  the  regularity  of  nature  upon  which  science  bases 
itself  is  broken  up.  Miracle,  in  other  words,  seems  to 
introduce  an  element  of  arbitrariness  and  unaccountabil¬ 
ity  into  the  course  of  the  world. 


102  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

The  objection  ignores  what  is  really  fundamental  in 
the  Christian  conception  of  miracle.  According  to  the 
Christian  conception,  a  miracle  is  wrought  by  the  imme¬ 
diate  power  of  God.  It  is  not  wrought  by  an  arbitrary 
and  fantastic  despot,  but  by  the  very  God  to  whom  the 
regularity  of  nature  itself  is  due — by  the  God,  moreover, 
whose  character  is  known  through  the  Bible.  Such  a 
God,  we  may  be  sure,  will  not  do  despite  to  the  reason 
that  He  has  given  to  His  creatures ;  His  interposition 
will  introduce  no  disorder  into  the  world  that  He  has 
made.  There  is  nothing  arbitrary  about  a  miracle,  ac¬ 
cording  to  the  Christian  conception.  It  is  not  an  un¬ 
caused  event,  but  an  event  that  is  caused  by  the  very 
source  of  all  the  order  that  is  in  the  world.  It  is  depend¬ 
ent  altogether  upon  the  least  arbitrary  and  the  most 
firmly  fixed  of  all  the  things  that  are — namely  upon  the 
character  of  God. 

The  possibility  of  miracle,  then,  is  indissolubly  joined 
with  “theism.”  Once  admit  the  existence  of  a  personal 
God,  Maker  and  Ruler  of  the  world,  and  no  limits,  tem¬ 
poral  or  otherwise,  can  be  set  to  the  creative  power  of 
such  a  God.  Admit  that  God  once  created  the  world,  and 
you  cannot  deny  that  He  might  engage  in  creation  again. 
But  it  will  be  said,  the  actuality  of  miracles  is  different 
from  the  possibility  of  them.  It  may  be  admitted  that 
miracles  conceivably  might  occur.  But  have  they  actu¬ 
ally  occurred? 

This  question  looms  very  large  in  the  minds  of  modern 
men.  The  burden  of  the  question  seems  to  rest  heavily 
even  upon  many  who  still  accept  the  miracles  of  the  New 
Testament.  The  miracles  used  to  be  regarded  as  an  aid 
to  faith,  it  is  often  said,  but  now  they  are  a  hindrance  to 
faith;  faith  used  to  come  on  account  of  the  miracles,  but 
now  it  comes  in  despite  of  them;  men  used  to  believe  in 


Christ 


103 


Jesus  because  He  wrought  miracles,  but  now  we  accept 
the  miracles  because  on  other  grounds  we  have  come  to 
believe  in  Him. 

A  strange  confusion  underlies  this  common  way  of 
speaking.  In  one  sense,  certainly,  miracles  are  a  hin¬ 
drance  to  faith — but  who  ever  thought  the  contrary?  It 
may  certainly  be  admitted  that  if  the  New  Testament 
narrative  had  no  miracles  in  it,  it  would  be  far  easier  to 
believe.  The  more  commonplace  a  story  is,  the  easier  it  is 
to  accept  it  as  true.  But  commonplace  narratives  have 
little  value.  The  New  Testament  without  the  miracles 
would  be  far  easier  to  believe.  But  the  trouble  is,  it 
would  not  be  worth  believing.  Without  the  miracles  the 
New  Testament  would  contain  an  account  of  a  holy  man 
— not  a  perfect  man,  it  is  true,  for  He  was  led  to  make 
lofty  claims  to  which  He  had  no  right — but  a  man  at  least 
far  holier  than  the  rest  of  men.  But  of  what  benefit  would 
such  a  man,  and  the  death  which  marked  His  failure,  be  to 
us?  The  loftier  be  the  example  which  Jesus  set,  the 
greater  becomes  our  sorrow  at  our  failure  to  attain  to  it ; 
and  the  greater  our  hopelessness  under  the  burden  of  sin. 
The  sage  of  Nazareth  may  satisfy  those  who  have  never 
faced  the  problem  of  evil  in  their  own  lives;  but  to  talk 
about  an  ideal  to  those  who  are  under  the  thralldom  of 
sin  is  a  cruel  mockery.  Yet  if  Jesus  was  merely  a  man 
like  the  rest  of  men,  then  an  ideal  is  all  that  we  have  in 
Him.  Far  more  is  needed  by  a  sinful  world.  It  is  small 
comfort  to  be  told  that  there  was  goodness  in  the  world, 
when  what  we  need  is  goodness  triumphant  over  sin.  But 
goodness  triumphant  over  sin  involves  an  entrance  of  the 
creative  power  of  God,  and  that  creative  power  of  God  is 
manifested  by  the  miracles.  Without  the  miracles,  the 
New  Testament  might  be  easier  to  believe.  But  the  thing 
that  would  be  believed  would  be  entirely  different  from 


104  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

that  which  presents  itself  to  us  now.  Without  the  mira¬ 
cles  we  should  have  a  teacher ;  with  the  miracles  we  have  a 
Saviour. 

Certainly  it  is  a  mistake  to  isolate  the  miracles  from 
the  rest  of  the  New  Testament.  It  is  a  mistake  to  discuss 
the  question  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  as  though  that 
which  is  to  be  proved  were  simply  the  resurrection  of  a 
certain  man  of  the  first  century  in  Palestine.  No  doubt 
the  existing  evidence  for  such  an  event,  strong  as  the 
evidence  is,  might  be  insufficient.  The  historian  would  in¬ 
deed  be  obliged  to  say  that  no  naturalistic  explanation  of 
the  origin  of  the  Church  has  yet  been  discovered,  and  that 
the  evidence  for  the  miracle  is  exceedingly  strong;  but 
miracles  are,  to  say  the  least,  extremely  unusual  events, 
and  there  is  a  tremendous  hostile  presumption  against  ac¬ 
cepting  the  hypothesis  of  miracle  in  any  given  case.  But 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  question  in  this  case  does  not 
concern  the  resurrection  of  a  man  about  whom  we  know 
nothing;  it  concerns  the  resurrection  of  Jesus.  And 
Jesus  was  certainly  a  very  extraordinary  Person.  The 
uniqueness  of  the  character  of  Jesus  removes  the  hostile 
presumption  against  miracle ;  it  was  extremely  improb¬ 
able  that  any  ordinary  man  should  rise  from  the  dead,  but 
Jesus  was  like  no  other  man  that  ever  lived. 

But  the  evidence  for  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament 
is  supported  in  yet  another  way;  it  is  supported  by  the 
existence  of  an  adequate  occasion.  It  has  been  observed 
above  that  a  miracle  is  an  event  produced  by  the  imme¬ 
diate  power  of  God,  and  that  God  is  a  God  of  order.  The 
evidence  of  a  miracle  is  therefore  enormously  strengthened 
when  the  purpose  of  the  miracle  can  be  detected.  That 
does  not  mean  that  within  a  complex  of  miracles  an  exact 
reason  must  be  assigned  to  every  one;  it  does  not  mean 
that  in  the  New  Testament  we  should  expect  to  see  exactly 


Christ 


105 


why  a  miracle  was  wrought  in  one  case  and  not  in  another* 
But  it  does  mean  that  acceptance  of  a  complex  of  miracles, 
is  made  vastly  easier  when  an  adequate  reason  can  be 
detected  for  the  complex  as  a  whole. 

In  the  case  of  the  New  Testament  miracles,  such  an 
adequate  reason  is  not  difficult  to  find.  It  is  found  in  the 
conquest  of  sin.  According  to  the  Christian  view,  as  set 
forth  in  the  Bible,  mankind  is  under  the  curse  of  God’s 
holy  law,  and  the  dreadful  penalty  includes  the  corruption 
of  our  whole  nature.  Actual  transgressions  proceed  from 
the  sinful  root,  and  serve  to  deepen  every  man’s  guilt  in 
the  sight  of  God.  On  the  basis  of  that  view,  so  profound,, 
so  true  to  the  observed  facts  of  life,  it  is  obvious  that 
nothing  natural  will  meet  our  need.  Nature  transmits, 
the  dreadful  taint ;  hope  is  to  be  sought  only  in  a  creative 
act  of  God. 

And  that  creative  act  of  God — so  mysterious,  so  con¬ 
trary  to  all  expectation,  yet  so  congruous  with  the  char¬ 
acter  of  the  God  who  is  revealed  as  the  God  of  love — is 
found  in  the  redeeming  work  of  Christ.  No  product  of 
sinful  humanity  could  have  redeemed  humanity  from  the 
dreadful  guilt  or  lifted  a  sinful  race  from  the  slough  of 
sin.  But  a  Saviour  has  come  from  God.  There  lies  the 
very  root  of  the  Christian  religion;  there  is  the  reason 
why  the  supernatural  is  the  very  ground  and  substance 
of  the  Christian  faith. 

But  the  acceptance  of  the  supernatural  depends  upon 
a  conviction  of  the  reality  of  sin.  Without  the  conviction 
of  sin  there  can  be  no  appreciation  of  the  uniqueness  of 
Jesus ;  it  is  only  when  we  contrast  our  sinfulness  with  His 
holiness  that  we  appreciate  the  gulf  which  separates  Him 
from  the  rest  of  the  children  of  men.  And  without  the 
conviction  of  sin  there  can  be  no  understanding  of  the 
occasion  for  the  supernatural  act  of  God;  without  the 


106  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

conviction  of  sin,  the  good  news  of  redemption  seems  to 
be  an  idle  tale.  So  fundamental  is  the  conviction  of  sin 
in  the  Christian  faith  that  it  will  not  do  to  arrive  at  it 
merely  by  a  process  of  reasoning;  it  will  not  do  to  say 
merely:  All  men  (as  I  have  been  told)  are  sinners;  I  am 
a  man ;  therefore  I  suppose  I  must  be  a  sinner  too.  That 
is  all  the  supposed  conviction  of  sin  amounts  to  some¬ 
times.  But  the  true  conviction  is  far  more  immediate 
than  that.  It  depends  indeed  upon  information  that  comes 
from  without ;  it  depends  upon  the  revelation  of  the  law 
of  God;  it  depends  upon  the  awful  verities  set  forth  in 
the  Bible  as  to  the  universal  sinfulness  of  mankind.  But 
it  adds  to  the  revelation  that  has  come  from  without  a 
conviction  of  the  whole  mind  and  heart,  a  profound  under¬ 
standing  of  one’s  own  lost  condition,  an  illumination  of 
the  deadened  conscience  which  causes  a  Copernican  revo¬ 
lution  in  one’s  attitude  toward  the  world  and  toward 
God.  When  a  man  has  passed  through  that  experience, 
he  wonders  at  his  former  blindness.  And  especially  does 
he  wonder  at  his  former  attitude  toward  the  miracles  of 
the  New  Testament,  and  toward  the  supernatural  Person 
who  is  there  revealed.  The  truly  penitent  man  glories  in 
the  supernatural,  for  he  knows  that  nothing  natural  would 
meet  his  need;  the  world  has  been  shaken  once  in  his 
downfall,  and  shaken  again  it  must  be  if  he  is  to  be  saved. 

Yet  an  acceptance  of  the  presuppositions  of  miracle 
does  not  render  unnecessary  the  plain  testimony  to  the 
miracles  that  have  actually  occurred.  And  that  testi¬ 
mony  is  exceedingly  strong.1  The  Jesus  presented  in  the 
New  Testament  was  clearly  an  historical  Person — so 
much  is  admitted  by  all  who  have  really  come  to  grips 
with  the  historical  problems  at  all.  But  just  as  clearly 
the  Jesus  presented  in  the  New  Testament  was  a  super- 
1  Compare  History  and  Faith,  1915,  pp.  6-8. 


Christ 


107 


natural  Person.  Yet  for  modern  liberalism  a  supernatu¬ 
ral  person  is  never  historical.  A  problem  arises  then  for 
those  who  adopt  the  liberal  point  of  view — the  Jesus  of 
the  New  Testament  is  historical,  He  is  supernatural,  and 
yet  what  is  supernatural,  on  the  liberal  hypothesis,  can 
never  be  historical.  The  problem  could  be  solved  only  by 
the  separation  of  the  natural  from  the  supernatural  in 
the  New  Testament  account  of  Jesus,  in  order  that  what 
is  supernatural  might  be  rejected  and  what  is  natural 
might  be  retained.  But  the  process  of  separation  has 
never  been  successfully  carried  out.  Many  have  been  the 
attempts — the  modern  liberal  Church  has  put  its  very 
heart  and  soul  into  the  effort,  so  that  there  is  scarcely 
any  more  brilliant  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  human 
spirit  than  this  “quest  of  the  historical  Jesus” — but  all 
the  attempts  have  failed.  The  trouble  is  that  the  miracles 
are  found  not  to  be  an  excrescence  in  the  New  Testament 
account  of  Jesus,  but  belong  to  the  very  warp  and  woof. 
They  are  intimately  connected  with  Jesus’  lofty  claims ; 
they  stand  or  fall  with  the  undoubted  purity  of  His  char¬ 
acter;  they  reveal  the  very  nature  of  His  mission  in  the 
world. 

Yet  miracles  are  rejected  by  the  modern  liberal  Church, 
and  with  the  miracles  the  entirety  of  the  supernatural 
Person  of  our  Lord.  Not  some  miracles  are  rejected,  but 
all.  It  is  a  matter  of  no  importance  whatever  that  some 
of  the  wonderful  works  of  Jesus  are  accepted  by  the  lib¬ 
eral  Church;  it  means  absolutely  nothing  when  some  of 
the  works  of  healing  are  regarded  as  historical.  For 
those  works  are  no  longer  regarded  by  modern  liberalism 
as  supernatural,  but  merely  as  faith-cures  of  an  extraor¬ 
dinary  kind.  And  it  is  the  presence  or  absence  of  the 
true  supernatural  which  is  the  really  important  thing. 
Such  concessions  as  to  faith-cures,  moreover,  carry  us  at 


108  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

best  but  a  very  short  way — disbelievers  in  the  supernatu¬ 
ral  must  simply  reject  as  legendary  or  mythical  the  great 
mass  of  the  wonderful  works. 

The  question,  then,  does  not  concern  the  historicity  of 
this  miracle  or  that ;  it  concerns  the  historicity  of  all 
miracles.  That  fact  is  often  obscured,  and  the  obscura¬ 
tion  of  it  often  introduces  an  element  of  something  like 
disingenuousness  into  the  advocacy  of  the  liberal  cause. 
The  liberal  preacher  singles  out  some  one  miracle  and 
discusses  that  as  though  it  were  the  only  point  at  issue. 
The  miracle  which  is  usually  singled  out  is  the  Virgin 
Birth.  The  liberal  preacher  insists  on  the  possibility  of 
believing  in  Christ  no  matter  which  view  be  adopted  as  to 
the  manner  of  His  entrance  into  the  world.  Is  not  the 
Person  the  same  no  matter  how  He  was  born?  The  im¬ 
pression  is  thus  produced  upon  the  plain  man  that  the 
preacher  is  accepting  the  main  outlines  of  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  account  of  Jesus,  but  merely  has  difficulties  with  this 
particular  element  in  the  account.  But  such  an  impres¬ 
sion  is  radically  false.  It  is  true  that  some  men  have 
denied  the  Virgin  Birth  and  yet  have  accepted  the  New 
Testament  account  of  Jesus  as  a  supernatural  Person. 
But  such  men  are  exceedingly  few  andHar  between.  It 
might  be  difficult  to  find  a  single  one  of  any  prominence 
living  to-day,  so  profoundly  and  so  obviously  congruous 
is  the  Virgin  Birth  with  the  whole  New  Testament  presen¬ 
tation  of  Christ.  The  overwhelming  majority  of  those 
who  reject  the  Virgin  Birth  reject  also  the  whole  super¬ 
natural  content  of  the  New  Testament,  and  make  of  the 
“resurrection”  just  what  the  word  “resurrection”  most 
emphatically  did  not  mean — a  permanence  of  the  influence 
of  Jesus  or  a  mere  spiritual  existence  of  Jesus  beyond  the 
grave.  Old  words  may  here  be  used,  but  the  thing  that 
they  designate  is  gone.  The  disciples  believed  in  the  con- 


Christ 


109 


tinued  personal  existence  of  Jesus  even  during  the  three 
sad  days  after  the  crucifixion ;  they  were  not  Sadducees ; 
they  believed  that  Jesus  lived  and  would  rise  at  the  last 
day.  But  what  enabled  them  to  begin  the  work  of  the 
Christian  Church  was  that  they  believed  the  body  of  Jesus 
already  to  have  been  raised  from  the  tomb  by  the  power 
of  God.  That  belief  involves  the  acceptance  of  the  super¬ 
natural  ;  and  the  acceptance  of  the  supernatural  is  thus 
the  very  heart  and  soul  of  the  religion  that  we  profess. 

Whatever  decision  is  made,  the  issue  should  certainly 
not  be  obscured.  The  issue  does  not  concern  individual 
miracles,  even  so  important  a  miracle  as  the  Virgin  Birth. 
It  really  concerns  all  miracles.  And  the  question  concern¬ 
ing  all  miracles  is  simply  the  question  of  the  acceptance  or 
rejection  of  the  Saviour  that  the  New  Testament  presents. 
Reject  the  miracles  and  you  have  in  Jesus  the  fairest 
flower  of  humanity  who  made  such  an  impression  upon 
His  followers  that  after  His  death  they  could  not  believe 
that  He  had  perished  but  experienced  hallucinations  in 
which  they  thought  they  saw  Him  risen  from  the  dead; 
accept  the  miracles,  and  you  have  a  Saviour  who  came 
voluntarily  into  this  world  for  our  salvation,  suffered  for 
our  sins  upon  the  Cross,  rose  again  from  the  dead  by  the 
power  of  God,  and  ever  lives  to  make  intercession  for  us. 
The  difference  between  those  two  views  is  the  difference 
between  two  totally  diverse  religions.  It  is  high  time  that 
this  issue  should  be  faced ;  it  is  high  time  that  the  mislead¬ 
ing  use  of  traditional  phrases  should  be  abandoned  and 
men  should  speak  their  full  mind.  Shall  we  accept  the 
Jesus  of  the  New  Testament  as  our  Saviour,  or  shall  we 
reject  Him  with  the  liberal  Church? 

At  this  point  an  objection  may  be  raised.  The  liberal 
preacher,  it  may  be  said,  is  often  ready  to  speak  of  the 
“deity”  of  Christ;  he  is  often  ready  to  say  that  “Jesus 


110  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

is  God.”  The  plain  man  is  much  impressed.  The 
preacher,  he  says,  believes  in  the  deity  of  our  Lord;  ob¬ 
viously  then  his  unorthodoxy  must  concern  only  details ; 
and  those  who  object  to  his  presence  in  the  Church  are 
narrow  and  uncharitable  heresy-hunters. 

But  unfortunately  language  is  valuable  only  as  the 
expression  of  thought.  The  English  word  “God”  has  no 
particular  virtue  in  itself ;  it  is  not  more  beautiful  than 
other  words.  Its  importance  depends  altogether  upon 
the  meaning  which  is  attached  to  it.  When,  therefore,  the 
liberal  preacher  says  that  “Jesus  is  God,”  the  significance 
of  the  utterance  depends  altogether  upon  what  is  meant 
by  “God.” 

And  it  has  already  been  observed  that  when  the  liberal 
preacher  uses  the  word  “God,”  he  means  something  en¬ 
tirely  different  from  that  which  the  Christian  means  by 
the  same  word.  God,  at  least  according  to  the  logical 
trend  of  modern  liberalism,  is  not  a  person  separate  from 
the  world,  but  merely  the  unity  that  pervades  the  world. 
To  say,  therefore,  that  Jesus  is  God  means  merely  that 
the  life  of  God,  which  appears  in  all  men,  appears  with 
special  clearness  or  richness  in  Jesus.  Such  an  assertion^ 
is  diametrically  opposed  to  the  Christian  belief  in  the 
deity  of  Christ. 

Equally  opposed  to  Christian  belief  is  another  meaning 
that  is  sometimes  attached  to  the  assertion  that  Jesus  is 
God.  The  word  “God”  is  sometimes  used  to  denote  simply 
the  supreme  object  of  men’s  desires,  the  highest  thing  that 
men  know.  We  have  given  up  the  notion,  it  is  said,  that 
there  is  a  Maker  and  Ruler  of  the  universe ;  such  notions 
belong  to  “metaphysics,”  and  are  rejected  by  the  modern 
man.  But  the  word  “God,”  though  it  can  no  longer 
denote  the  Maker  of  the  universe,  is  convenient  as  denot¬ 
ing  the  object  of  men’s  emotions  and  desires.  Of  some 


Christ 


111 


men,  it  can  be  said  that  their  God  is  mammon — mammon 
is  that  for  which  they  labor,  and  to  which  their  hearts  are 
attached.  In  a  somewhat  similar  way,  the  liberal  preacher 
says  that  Jesus  is  God.  He  does  not  mean  at  all  to  say 
that  Jesus  is  identical  in  nature  with  a  Maker  and  Ruler 
of  the  universe,  of  whom  an  idea  could  be  obtained  apart 
from  Jesus.  In  such  a  Being  he  no  longer  believes.  All 
that  he  means  is  that  the  man  Jesus — a  man  here  in  the 
midst  of  us,  and  of  the  same  nature  as  ours — is  the  high¬ 
est  thing  we  know.  It  is  obvious  that  such  a  way  of 
thinking  is  far  more  widely  removed  from  Christian  belief 
than  is  Unitarianism,  at  least  the  earlier  forms  of  Uni- 
tarianism.  For  the  early  Unitarianism  no  doubt  at  least 
believed  in  God.  The  modern  liberals,  on  the  other  hand, 
say  that  Jesus  is  God  not  because  they  think  high  of 
Jesus,  but  because  they  think  desperately  low  of  God. 

In  another  way  also,  liberalism  within  the  “evangelical” 
churches  is  inferior  to  Unitarianism.  It  is  inferior  to 
Unitarianism  in  the  matter  of  honesty.  In  order  to  main¬ 
tain  themselves  in  the  evangelical  churches  and  quiet  the 
fears  of  their  conservative  associates,  the  liberals  resort 
constantly  to  a  double  use  of  language,  A  young  man, 
for  example,  has  received  disquieting  reports  of  the  un¬ 
orthodoxy  of  a  prominent  preacher.  Interrogating  the 
preacher  as  to  his  belief,  he  receives  a  reassuring  reply. 
“You  may  tell  everyone,”  says  the  liberal  preacher  in 
effect,  “that  I  believe  that  Jesus  is  God.”  The  inquirer 
goes  away  much  impressed. 

It  may  well  be  doubted,  however,  whether  the  assertion, 
“I  believe  that  Jesus  is  God,”  or  the  like,  on  the  lips  of 
liberal  preachers,  is  strictly  truthful.  The  liberal 
preacher  attaches  indeed  a  real  meaning  to  the  words,  and 
that  meaning  is  very  dear  to  his  heart.  He  really  does 
believe  that  “Jesus  is  God.”  But  the  trouble  is  that  he 


112  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

attaches  to  the  words  a  different  meaning  from  that  which 
is  attached  to  them  by  the  simple-minded  person  to  whom 
he  is  speaking.  He  offends,  therefore,  against  the  funda¬ 
mental  principle  of  truthfulness  in  language.  According 
to  that  fundamental  principle,  language  is  truthful,  not 
when  the  meaning  attached  to  the  words  by  the  speaker, 
but  when  the  meaning  intended  to  be  produced  in  the  mind 
of  the  particular  person  addressed,  is  in  accordance  with 
the  facts.  Thus  the  truthfulness  of  the  assertion,  “I 
believe  that  Jesus  is  God,”  depends  upon  the  audience  that 
is  addressed.  If  the  audience  is  composed  of  theologically 
trained  persons,  who  will  attach  the  same  meaning  to  the 
word  “God”  as  that  which  the  speaker  attaches  to  it,  then 
the  language  is  truthful.  But  if  the  audience  is  composed 
of  old-fashioned  Christians,  who  have  never  attached  any¬ 
thing  but  the  old  meaning  to  the  word  “God”  (the  mean¬ 
ing  which  appears  in  the  first  verse  of  Genesis),  then  the 
language  is  untruthful.  And  in  the  latter  case,  not  all 
the  pious  motives  in  the  world  will  make  the  utterance 
right.  Christian  ethics  do  not  abrogate  common  honesty ; 
no  possible  desire  of  edifying  the  Church  and  of  avoiding 
offence  can  excuse  a  lie. 

At  any  rate,  the  deity  of  our  Lord,  in  any  real  sense  of 
the  word  “deity,”  is  of  course  denied  by  modern  liberalism. 
According  to  the  modern  liberal  Church,  Jesus  differs 
from  the  rest  of  men  only  in  degree  and  not  in  kind ;  He 
can  be  divine  only  if  all  men  are  divine.  But  if  the  liberal 
conception  of  the  deity  of  Christ  thus  becomes  meaning¬ 
less,  what  is  the  Christian  conception?  What  does  the 
Christian  man  mean  when  he  confesses  that  “Jesus  is 
God”? 

The  answer  has  been  given  in  what  has  already  been 
said.  It  has  already  been  observed  that  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  represents  Jesus  as  a  supernatural  Person.  But  if 


Christ 


113 


Jesus  is  a  supernatural  Person  He  is  either  divine  or  else 
He  is  an  intermediate  Being,  higher  indeed  than  man,  but 
lower  than  God.  The  latter  view  has  been  abandoned  for 
many  centuries  in  the  Christian  Church,  and  there  is  not 
much  likelihood  that  it  will  be  revived ;  Arianism  certainly 
is  dead.  The  thought  of  Christ  as  a  super-angelic  Being, 
like  God  but  not  God,  belongs  evidently  to  pagan  myth¬ 
ology,  and  not  to  the  Bible  or  to  Christian  faith.  It  will 
usually  be  admitted,  if  the  theistic  conception  of  the  sep¬ 
arateness  between  man  and  God  be  held,  that  Christ  is 
either  God  or  else  simply  man ;  He  is  certainly  not  a  Being 
intermediate  between  God  and  man.  If,  then,  He  is  not 
merely  man,  but  a  supernatural  Person,  the  conclusion  is 
that  He  is  God. 

In  the  second  place,  it  has  already  been  observed  that 
in  the  New  Testament  and  in  all  true  Christianity,  Jesus 
is  no  mere  example  for  faith,  but  the  object  of  faith.  And 
the  faith  of  which  Jesus  is  the  object  is  clearly  religious 
faith;  the  Christian  man  reposes  confidence  in  Jesus  in  a 
way  that  would  be  out  of  place  in  the  case  of  any  other 
than  God.  It  is  no  lesser  thing  that  is  committed  to 
Jesus,  but  the  eternal  welfare  of  the  soul.  The  entire 
Christian  attitude  toward  Jesus  as  it  is  found  throughout 
the  New  Testament  presupposes  clearly,  then,  the  deity  of 
our  Lord. 

It  is  in  the  light  of  this  central  presupposition  that  the 
individual  assertions  ought  to  be  approached.  The  indi¬ 
vidual  passages  which  attest  the  deity  of  Christ  are  not 
excrescences  in  the  New  Testament,  but  natural  fruits  of 
a  fundamental  conception  which  is  everywhere  the  same. 
Those  individual  passages  are  not  confined  to  any  one 
book  or  group  of  books.  In  the  Pauline  Epistles,  of 
course,  the  passages  are  particularly  plain;  the  Christ  of 
the  Epistles  appears  again  and  again  as  associated  only 


114<  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

with  the  Father  and  with  His  Spirit.  In  the  Gospel  of 
John,  also,  one  does  not  have  to  seek  very  long;  the  deity 
of  Christ  is  almost  the  theme  of  the  book.  But  the  testi¬ 
mony  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  is  not  really  different  from 
that  which  appears  everywhere  else.  The  way  in  which 
Jesus  speaks  of  my  Father  and  the  Son — for  example,  in 
the  famous  passage  in  Matt.  xi.  2 7  (Lk.  x.  22)  :  “All 
things  have  been  delivered  unto  me  of  my  Father,  and  no 
man  knoweth  the  Son  but  the  Father,  neither  knoweth  any 
man  the  Father  save  the  Son  and  He  to  whomsoever  the 
Son  will  reveal  Him” — this  manner  of  presenting  Jesus’ 
relation  to  the  Father,  absolutely  fundamental  in  the 
Synoptic  Gospels,  involves  the  assertion  of  the  deity  of 
our  Lord.  The  Person  who  so  speaks  is  represented  as 
being  in  mysterious  union  with  the  eternal  God. 

Yet  the  New  Testament  with  equal  clearness  presents 
Jesus  as  a  man.  The  Gospel  of  John,  which  contains  at 
the  beginning  the  stupendous  utterance,  “The  Word  was 
God,”  and  dwells  constantly  upon  the  deity  of  the  Lord, 
also  represents  Jesus  as  weary  at  the  well  and  as  thirsty 
in  the  hour  of  agony  on  the  Cross.  Scarcely  in  the  Synop¬ 
tic  Gospels  can  one  discover  such  drastic  touches  attesting 
the  humanity  of  our  Saviour  as  those  which  appear  again 
and  again  in  the  Gospel  of  John.  With  regard  to  the 
Synoptic  Gospels,  of  course  there  can  be  no  debate ;  the 
Synoptists  clearly  present  a  Person  who  lived  a  genuine 
human  life  and  was  Himself  true  man. 

The  truth  is,  the  witness  of  the  New  Testament  is  every¬ 
where  the  same;  the  New  Testament  everywhere  presents 
One  who  was  both  God  and  man.  And  it  is  interesting  to 
observe  how  unsuccessful  have  been  all  the  efforts  to  reject 
one  part  of  this  witness  and  retain  the  rest.  The  Apolli- 
narians  rejected  the  full  humanity  of  the  Lord,  but  in 
doing  so  they  obtained  a  Person  who  was  very  different 


Christ 


115 


from  the  Jesus  of  the  New  Testament.  The  Jesus  of  the 
New  Testament  was  clearly,  in  the  full  sense,  a  man. 
Others  seem  to  have  supposed  that  the  divine  and  the 
human  were  so  blended  in  Jesus  that  there  was  produced  a 
nature  neither  purely  divine  nor  purely  human,  but  a 
tertium  quid.  But  nothing  could  be  more  remote  from  the 
New  Testament  teaching  than  that.  According  to  the  New 
Testament  the  divine  and  human  natures  were  clearly 
distinct ;  the  divine  nature  was  pure  divinity,  and  the 
human  nature  was  pure  humanity;  Jesus  was  God  and 
man  in  two  distinct  natures.  The  Nestorians,  on  the 
other  hand,  so  emphasized  the  distinctness  of  divine  and 
human  in  Jesus  as  to  suppose  that  there  were  in  Jesus 
two  separate  persons.  But  such  a  Gnosticizing  view  is 
plainly  contrary  to  the  record;  the  New  Testament 
plainly  teaches  the  unity  of  the  Person  of  our  Lord. 

By  elimination  of  these  errors  the  Church  arrived  at 
the  New  Testament  doctrine  of  two  natures  in  one  Person; 
the  Jesus  of  the  New  Testament  is  “God  and  man,  in  two 
distinct  natures,  and  one  Person  forever.”  That  doctrine 
is  sometimes  regarded  as  speculative.  But  nothing  could 
be  further  from  the  fact.  Whether  the  doctrine  of  the 
two  natures  is  true  or  false,  it  was  certainly  produced  not 
by  speculation,  but  by  an  attempt  to  summarize,  suc¬ 
cinctly  and  exactly,  the  Scriptural  teaching. 

This  doctrine  is  of  course  rejected  by  modern  liberal¬ 
ism.  And  it  is  rejected  in  a  very  simple  way — by  the 
elimination  of  the  whole  higher  nature  of  our  Lord.  But 
such  radicalism  is  not  a  bit  more  successful  than  the 
heresies  of  the  past.  The  Jesus  who  is  supposed  to  be 
left  after  the  elimination  of  the  supernatural  element  is 
at  best  a  very  shadowy  figure;  for  the  elimination  of  the 
supernatural  logically  involves  the  elimination  of  much 
that  remains,  and  the  historian  constantly  approaches  the 


116  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

absurd  view  which  effaces  Jesus  altogether  from  the  pages 
of  history.  But  even  after  such  dangers  have  been 
avoided,  even  after  the  historian,  by  setting  arbitrary 
limits  to  his  process  of  elimination,  has  succeeded  in  re¬ 
constructing  a  purely  human  Jesus,  the  Jesus  thus  con¬ 
structed  is  found  to  be  entirely  unreal.  He  has  a  moral 
contradiction  at  the  very  centre  of  His  being — a  contra¬ 
diction  due  to  His  Messianic  consciousness.  He  was  pure 
and  humble  and  strong  and  sane,  yet  He  supposed,  with¬ 
out  basis  in  fact,  that  He  was  to  be  the  final  Judge  of  all 
the  earth!  The  liberal  Jesus,  despite  all  the  efforts  of 
modern  psychological  reconstruction  to  galvanize  Him 
into  life,  remains  a  manufactured  figure  of  the  stage. 
Very  different  is  the  Jesus  of  the  New  Testament  and  of 
the  great  Scriptural  creeds.  That  Jesus  is  indeed  mys¬ 
terious.  Who  can  fathom  the  mystery  of  His  Person? 
But  the  mystery  is  a  mystery  in  which  a  man  can  rest. 
The  Jesus  of  the  New  Testament  has  at  least  one  advan¬ 
tage  over  the  Jesus  of  modern  reconstruction — He  is  real. 
He  is  not  a  manufactured  figure  suitable  as  a  point  of 
support  for  ethical  maxims,  but  a  genuine  Person  whom 
a  man  can  love.  Men  have  loved  Him  through  all  the 
Christian  centuries.  And  the  strange  thing  is  that  despite 
all  the  efforts  to  remove  Him  from  the  pages  of  history, 
there  are  those  who  love  Him  still. 


CHAPTER  VI 


SALVATION 

It  has  been  observed  thus  far  that  liberalism  differs 
from  Christianity  with  regard  to  the  presuppositions  of 
the  gospel  (the  view  of  God  and  the  view  of  man),  with 
regard  to  the  Book  in  which  the  gospel  is  contained,  and 
with  regard  to  the  Person  whose  work  the  gospel  sets 
forth.  It  is  not  surprising  then  that  it  differs  from 
Christianity  in  its  account  of  the  gospel  itself ;  it  is  not 
surprising  that  it  presents  an  entirely  different  account 
of  the  way  of  salvation.  Liberalism  finds  salvation  (so 
far  as  it  is  willing  to  speak  at  all  of  “salvation”)  in  man; 
Christianity  finds  it  in  an  act  of  God. 

The  difference  with  regard  to  the  way  of  salvation  con¬ 
cerns,  in  the  first  place,  the  basis  of  salvation  in  the  re¬ 
deeming  work  of  Christ.  According  to  Christian  belief, 
Jesus  is  our  Saviour,  not  by  virtue  of  what  He  said,  not 
even  by  virtue  of  what  He  was,  but  by  what  He  did.  He 
is  our  Saviour,  not  because  He  has  inspired  us  to  live  the 
same  kind  of  life  that  He  lived,  but  because  He  took  upon 
Himself  the  dreadful  guilt  of  our  sins  and  bore  it  instead 
of  us  on  the  cross.  Such  is  the  Christian  conception  of 
the  Cross  of  Christ.  It  is  ridiculed  as  being  a  “subtle 
theory  of  the  atonement.”  In  reality,  it  is  the  plain 
teaching  of  the  word  of  God ;  we  know  absolutely  nothing 
about  an  atonement  that  is  not  a  vicarious  atonement,  for 
that  is  the  only  atonement  of  which  the  New  Testament 
speaks.  And  this  Bible  doctrine  is  not  intricate  or  subtle. 

117 


118  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

On  the  contrary,  though  it  involves  mysteries,  it  is  itself 
so  simple  that  a  child  can  understand  it.  “We  deserved 
eternal  death,  but  the  Lord  Jesus,  because  He  loved  us, 
died  instead  of  us  on  the  cross” — surely  there  is  nothing 
so  very  intricate  about  that.  It  is  not  the  Bible  doctrine 
of  the  atonement  which  is  difficult  to  understand — what 
are  really  incomprehensible  are  the  elaborate  modern 
efforts  to  get  rid  of  the  Bible  doctrine  in  the  interests  of 
human  pride.1 

Modern  liberal  preachers  do  indeed  sometimes  speak 
of  the  “atonement.”  But  they  speak  of  it  just  as  seldom 
as  they  possibly  can,  and  one  can  see  plainly  that  their 
hearts  are  elsewhere  than  at  the  foot  of  the  Cross.  In¬ 
deed,  at  this  point,  as  at  many  others,  one  has  the  feeling 
that  traditional  language  is  being  strained  to  become  the 
expression  of  totally  alien  ideas.  And  when  the  tradi¬ 
tional  phraseology  has  been  stripped  away,  the  essence 
of  the  modern  conception  of  the  death  of  Christ,  though 
that  conception  appears  in  many  forms,  is  fairly  plain. 
The  essence  of  it  is  that  the  death  of  Christ  had  an  effect 
not  upon  God  but  only  upon  man.  Sometimes  the  effect 
upon  man  is  conceived  of  in  a  very  simple  way,  Christ’s 
death  being  regarded  merely  as  an  example  of  self-sacri¬ 
fice  for  us  to  emulate.  The  uniqueness  of  this  particular 
example,  then,  can  be  found  only  in  the  fact  that  Chris¬ 
tian  sentiment,  gathering  around  it,  has  made  it  a  con¬ 
venient  symbol  for  all  self-sacrifice;  it  puts  in  concrete 
form  what  would  otherwise  have  to  be  expressed  in  colder 
general  terms.  Sometimes,  again,  the  effect  of  Christ’s 
death  upon  us  is  conceived  of  in  subtler  ways ;  the  death 
of  Christ,  it  is  said,  shows  how  much  God  hates  sin — since 
sin  brought  even  the  Holy  One  to  the  dreadful  Cross — 

1  See  “The  Second  Declaration  of  the  Council  on  Organic  Union,” 
in  The  Presbyterian ,  for  March  17,  1921,  p.  8. 


Salvation 


119 


and  we  too,  therefore,  ought  to  hate  sin,  as  God  hates  it, 
and  repent.  Sometimes,  still  again,  the  death  of  Christ 
is  thought  of  as  displaying  the  love  of  God;  it  exhibits 
God’s  own  Son  as  given  up  for  us  all.  These  modern 
“theories  of  the  atonement”  are  not  all  to  be  placed  upon 
the  same  plane;  the  last  of  them,  in  particular,  may  be 
joined  with  a  high  view  of  Jesus’  Person.  But  they  err 
in  that  they  ignore  the  dreadful  reality  of  guilt,  and 
make  a  mere  persuasion  of  the  human  will  all  that  is 
needed  for  salvation.  They  do  indeed  all  contain  an 
element  of  truth:  it  is  true  that  the  death  of  Christ  is  an 
example  of  self-sacrifice  which  may  inspire  self-sacrifice 
in  others ;  it  is  true  that  the  death  of  Christ  shows  how 
much  God  hates  sin;  it  is  true  that  the  death  of  Christ 
displays  the  love  of  God.  All  of  these  truths  are  found 
plainly  in  the  New  Testament.  But  they  are  swallowed 
up  in  a  far  greater  truth — that  Christ  died  instead  of  us 
to  present  us  faultless  before  the  throne  of  God.  With¬ 
out  that  central  truth,  all  the  rest  is  devoid  of  real  mean¬ 
ing:  an  example  of  self-sacrifice  is^  useless  to  those  who 
are  under  both  the  guilt  and  thralldom  of  sin;  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  God’s  hatred  of  sin  can  in  itself  bring  only 
despair ;  an  exhibition  of  the  love  of  God  is  a  mere  display 
unless  there  was  some  underlying  reason  for  the  sacrifice. 
If  the  Cross  is  to  be  restored  to  its  rightful  place  in  Chris¬ 
tian  life,  we  shall  have  to  pentrate  far  beneath  the  modern 
theories  to  Him  who  loved  us  and  gave  Himself  for  us. 

Upon  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Cross,  modern  lib¬ 
erals  are  never  weary  of  pouring  out  the  vials  of  their 
hatred  and  their  scorn.  Even  at  this  point,  it  is  true, 
the  hope  of  avoiding  offence  is  not  always  abandoned ;  the 
words  “vicarious  atonement”  and  the  like — of  course  in  a 
sense  totally  at  variance  from  their  Christian  meaning — - 
are  still  sometimes  used.  But  despite  such  occasional  em- 


120  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

ployment  of  traditional  language  the  liberal  preachers 
reveal  only  too  clearly  what  is  in  their  minds.  They  speak 
with  disgust  of  those  who  believe  “that  the  blood  of  our 
Lord,  shed  in  a  substitutionary  death,  placates  an  alien¬ 
ated  Deity  and  makes  possible  welcome  for  the  returning 
sinner.”  1  Against  the  doctrine  of  the  Cross  they  use 
every  weapon  of  caricature  and  vilification.  Thus  they 
pour  out  their  scorn  upon  a  thing  so  holy  and  so  precious 
that  in  the  presence  of  it  the  Christian  heart  melts  in 
gratitude  too  deep  for  words.  It  never  seems  to  occur 
to  modern  liberals  that  in  deriding  the  Christian  doctrine 
of  the  Cross,  they  are  trampling  upon  human  hearts. 
But  the  modern  liberal  attacks  upon  the  Christian  doc¬ 
trine  of  the  Cross  may  at  least  serve  the  purpose  of  show¬ 
ing  what  that  doctrine  is,  and  from  this  point  of  view  they 
may  be  examined  briefly  now. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  the  Christian  way  of  salvation 
through  the  Cross  of  Christ  is  criticized  because  it  is 
dependent  upon  history.  This  criticism  is  sometimes 
evaded;  it  is  sometimes  said  that  as  Christians  we  may 
attend  to  what  Christ  does  now  for  every  Christian  rather 
than  to  what  He  did  long  ago  in  Palestine.  But  the 
evasion  involves  a  total  abandonment  of  the  Christian 
faith.  If  the  saving  work  of  Christ  were  confined  to  what 
He  does  now  for  every  Christian,  there  would  be  no  such 
thing  as  a  Christian  gospel — an  account  of  an  event  which 
put  a  new  face  on  life.  What  we  should  have  left  would 
be  simply  mysticism,  and  mysticism  is  quite  different  from 
Christianity.  It  is  the  connection  of  the  present  experi¬ 
ence  of  the  believer  with  an  actual  historic  appearance  of 
Jesus  in  the  world  which  prevents  our  religion  from  being 
mysticism  and  causes  it  to  be  Christianity. 

1Fosdick,  Shall  the  Fundamentalists  Win?,  stenographically  re¬ 
ported  by  Margaret  Renton,  19 22,  p.  5. 


Salvation 


121 


It  must  certainly  be  admitted,  then,  that  Christianity 
does  depend  upon  something  that  happened ;  our  religion 
must  be  abandoned  altogether  unless  at  a  definite  point 
in  history  Jesus  died  as  a  propitiation  for  the  sins  of 
men.  Christianity  is  certainly  dependent  upon  history. 

But  if  so,  the  objection  lies  very  near.  Must  we  really 
depend  for  the  welfare  of  our  souls  upon  what  happened 
long  ago?  Must  we  really  wait  until  historians  have  fin¬ 
ished  disputing  about  the  value  of  sources  and  the  like 
before  we  can  have  peace  with  God?  Would  it  not  be 
better  to  have  a  salvation  which  is  with  us  here  and  now, 
and  which  depends  only  upon  what  we  can  see  or  feel? 

With  regard  to  this  objection  it  should  be  observed  that 
if  religion  be  made  independent  of  history  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  a  gospel.  For  “gospel”  means  “good  news,” 
tidings,  information  about  something  that  has  happened. 
A  gospel  independent  of  history  is  a  contradiction  in 
terms.  The  Christian  gospel  means,  not  a  presentation 
of  what  always  has  been  true,  but  a  report  of  something 
new — something  that  imparts  a  totally  different  aspect 
to  the  situation  of  mankind.  The  situation  of  mankind 
was  desperate  because  of  sin;  but  God  has  changed  the 
situation  by  the  atoning  death  of  Christ — that  is  no  mere 
reflection  upon  the  old,  but  an  account  of  something  new. 
We  are  shut  up  in  this  world  as  in  a  beleaguered  camp. 
To  maintain  our  courage,  the  liberal  preacher  offers  us 
exhortation.  Make  the  best  of  the  situation,  he  says,  look 
on  the  bright  side  of  life.  But  unfortunately,  such  ex¬ 
hortation  cannot  change  the  facts.  In  particular  it  can¬ 
not  remove  the  dreadful  fact  of  sin.  Very  different  is  the 
message  of  the  Christian  evangelist.  He  offers  not  reflec¬ 
tion  on  the  old  but  tidings  of  something  new,  not  exhorta¬ 
tion  but  a  gospel.1 

1  Compare  History  and  Faith ,  1915,  pp.  1-3. 


122  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

It  is  true  that  the  Christian  gospel  is  an  account,  not 
of  something  that  happened  yesterday,  but  of  something 
that  happened  long  ago ;  but  the  important  thing  is  that 
it  really  happened.  If  it  really  happened,  then  it  makes 
little  difference  when  it  happened.  No  matter  when  it 
happened,  whether  yesterday  or  in  the  first  century,  it 
remains  a  real  gospel,  a  real  piece  of  news. 

The  happening  of  long  ago,  moreover,  is  in  this  case 
confirmed  by  present  experience.  The  Christian  man 
receives  first  the  account  which  the  New  Testament  gives 
of  the  atoning  death  of  Christ.  That  account  is  history. 
But  if  true  it  has  effects  in  the  present,  and  it  can  be 
tested  by  its  effects.  The  Christian  man  makes  trial  of 
the  Christian  message,-  and  making  trial  of  it  he  finds  it  to 
be  true.  Experience  does  not  provide  a  substitute  for  the 
documentary  evidence,  but  it  does  confirm  that  evidence. 
The  word  of  the  Cross  no  longer  seems  to  the  Christian  to 
be  merely  a  far-off  thing,  merely  a  matter  to  be  disputed 
about  by  trained  theologians.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  re¬ 
ceived  into  the  Christian’s  inmost  soul,  and  every  day  and 
hour  of  the  Christian’s  life  brings  new  confirmation  of  its 
truth. 

In  the  second  place,  the  Christian  doctrine  of  salvation 
through  the  death  of  Christ  is  criticized  on  the  ground 
that  it  is  narrow.  It  binds  salvation  to  the  name  of  Jesus, 
and  there  are  many  men  in  the  world  who  have  never  in 
any  effective  way  heard  of  the  name  of  Jesus.  What  is 
really  needed,  we  are  told,  is  a  salvation  which  will  save 
all  men  everywhere,  whether  they  have  heard  of  Jesus  or 
not,  and  whatever  may  be  the  type  of  life  to  which  they 
have  been  reared.  Not  a  new  creed,  it  is  said,  will  meet 
the  universal  need  of  the  world,  but  some  means  of  making 
effective  in  right  living  whatever  creed  men  may  chance  to 
have. 


Salvation 


123 


This  second  objection,  as  well  as  the  first,  is  sometimes 
evaded.  It  is  sometimes  said  that  although  one  way  of 
salvation  is  by  means  of  acceptance  of  the  gospel  there 
may  be  other  ways.  But  this  method  of  meeting  the  ob¬ 
jection  relinquishes  one  of  the  things  that  are  most  ob¬ 
viously  characteristic  of  the  Christian  message — namely, 
its  exclusiveness.  What  struck  the  early  observers  of 
Christianity  most  forcibly  was  not  merely  that  salvation 
was  offered  by  means  of  the  Christian  gospel,  but  that  all 
other  means  were  resolutely  rejected.  The  early  Chris¬ 
tian  missionaries  demanded  an  absolutely  exclusive  devo¬ 
tion  to  Christ.  Such  exclusiveness  ran  directly  counter  to 
the  prevailing  syncretism  of  the  Hellenistic  age.  In  that 
day,  many  saviours  were  offered  by  many  religions  to  the 
attention  of  men,  but  the  various  pagan  religions  could 
live  together  in  perfect  harmony ;  when  a  man  became  a* 
devotee  of  one  god,  he  did  not  have  to  give  up  the  others. 
But  Christianity  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  these 
“courtly  polygamies  of  the  soul” ;  1  it  demanded  an  abso¬ 
lutely  exclusive  devotion;  all  other  Saviours,  it  insisted, 
must  be  deserted  for  the  one  Lord.  Salvation,  in  other 
words,  was  not  merely  through  Christ,  but  it  was  only 
through  Christ.  In  that  little  word  “only”  lay  all  the 
offence.  Without  that  word  there  would  have  been  no 
persecutions ;  the  cultured  men  of  the  day  would  probably 
have  been  willing  to  give  Jesus  a  place,  and  an  honorable 
place,  among  the  saviours  of  mankind.  Without  its  ex¬ 
clusiveness,  the  Christian  message  would  have  seemed  per¬ 
fectly  inoffensive  to  the  men  of  that  day.  So  modern 
liberalism,  placing  Jesus  alongside  other  benefactors  of, 
mankind,  is  perfectly  inoffensive  in  the  modern  world. 
All  men  speak  well  of  it.  It  is  entirely  inoffensive.  But 

1  Phillimore,  in  the  introduction  to  his  translation  of  Philostratus, 
In  Honour  of  Apollonius  of  Tyana,  1912,  vol.  i,  p.  iii. 


124  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

it  is  also  entirely  futile.  The  offence  of  the  Cross  is  done 
away,  but  so  is  the  glory  and  the  power. 

Thus  it  must  fairly  be  admitted  that  Christianity  does 
bind  salvation  to  the  name  of  Christ.  The  question  need 
not  here  be  discussed  whether  the  benefits  of  Christ’s  death 
are  ever  applied  to  those  who,  though  they  have  come  to 
years  of  discretion,  have  not  heard  or  accepted  the  gospel 
message.  Certainly  the  New  Testament  holds  out  with 
regard  to  this  matter  no  clear  hope.  At  the  very  basis  of 
the  work  of  the  apostolic  Church  is  the  consciousness  of  a 
terrible  responsibility.  The  sole  message  of  life  and  sal¬ 
vation  had  been  committed  to  men;  that  message  was  at 
all  hazards  to  be  proclaimed  while  yet  there  was  time. 
The  objection  as  to  the  exclusiveness  of  the  Christian 
way  of  salvation,  therefore,  cannot  be  evaded,  but  must 
be  met. 

In  answer  to  the  objection,  it  may  be  said  simply  that 
the  Christian  way  of  salvation  is  narrow  only  so  long  as 
the  Church  chooses  to  let  it  remain  narrow.  The  name  of 
Jesus  is  discovered  to  be  strangely  adapted  to  men  of 
every  race  and  of  every  kind  of  previous  education.  And 
the  Church  has  ample  means,  with  promise  of  God’s  Spirit, 
to  bring  the  name  of  Jesus  to  all.  If,  therefore,  this  way 
of  salvation  is  not  offered  to  all,  it  is  not  the  fault  of  the 
way  of  salvation  itself,  but  the  fault  of  those  who  fail  to 
use  the  means  that  God  has  placed  in  their  hands. 

But,  it  may  be  said,  is  that  not  a  stupendous  responsi¬ 
bility  to  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  weak  and  sinful  men; 
is  it  not  more  natural  that  God  should  offer  salvation  tq 
all  without  requiring  them  to  accept  a  new  message  and 
thus  to  be  dependent  upon  the  faithfulness  of  the  mes¬ 
sengers?  The  answer  to  this  objection  is  plain.  It  is 
certainly  true  that  the  Christian  way  of  salvation  places 
a  stupendous  responsibility  upon  men.  But  that  responsi- 


Salvation 


125 


bility  is  like  the  responsibility  which,  as  ordinary  observa¬ 
tion  shows,  God  does,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  commit  to  men. 
It  is  like  the  responsibility,  for  example,  of  the  parent  for 
the  child.  The  parent  has  full  power  to  mar  the  soul  as 
well  as  the  body  of  the  child.  The  responsibility  is  ter¬ 
rible  ;  but  it  is  a  responsibility  which  unquestionably 
exists.  Similar  is  the  responsibility  of  the  Church  for 
making  the  name  of  Jesus  known  to  all  mankind.  It  is  a 
terrible  responsibility;  but  it  exists,  and  it  is  just  like  the 
other  known  dealings  of  God. 

But  modern  liberalism  has  still  more  specific  objections 
to  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Cross.  How  can  one  per¬ 
son,  it  is  asked,  suffer  for  the  sins  of  another?  The  thing, 
we  are  told,  is  absurd.  Guilt,  it  is  said,  is  personal;  if  I 
allow  another  man  to  suffer  for  my  fault,  my  guilt  is  not 
thereby  one  whit  diminished. 

An  answer  to  this  objection  is  sometimes  found  in  the 
plain  instances  in  ordinary  human  life  where  one  person 
does  suffer  for  another  person’s  sin.  In  the  war,  for  ex¬ 
ample,  many  men  died  freely  for  the  welfare  of  others. 
Here,  it  is  said,  we  have  something  analogous  to  the  sacri¬ 
fice  of  Christ. 

It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  the  analogy  is  very 
faint ;  for  it  does  not  touch  the  specific  point  at  issue.  The 
death  of  a  volunteer  soldier  in  the  war  was  like  the  death 
of  Christ  in  that  it  was  a  supreme  example  of  self-sacrifice. 
But  the  thing  to  be  accomplished  by  the  self-sacrifice  was 
entirely  different  from  the  thing  which  was  accomplished 
on  Calvary.  The  death  of  those  who  sacrificed  themselves 
in  the  war  brought  peace  and  protection  to  the  loved  ones 
at  home,  but  it  could  never  avail  to  wipe  out  the  guilt  of 
sin. 

The  real  answer  to  the  objection  is  to  be  found  not  in 
the  similarity  between  the  death  of  Christ  and  other  ex- 


126  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

amples  of  self-sacrifice,  but  in  the  profound  difference.1 
Why  is  it  that  men  are  no  longer  willing  to  trust  for  their 
own  salvation  and  for  the  hope  of  the  world  to  one  act 
that  was  done  by  one  Man  of  long  ago?  Why  is  it  that 
they  prefer  to  trust  to  millions  of  acts  of  self-sacrifice 
wrought  by  millions  of  men  all  through  the  centuries  and 
in  our  own  day?  The  answer  is  plain.  It  is  because  men 
have  lost  sight  of  the  majesty  of  Jesus’  Person.  They 
think  of  Him  as  a  man  like  themselves ;  and  if  He  was  a 
man  like  themselves,  His  death  becomes  simply  an  example 
of  self-sacrifice.  But  there  have  been  millions  of  examples 
of  self-sacrifice.  Why  then  should  we  pay  such  exclusive 
attention  to  this  one  Palestinian  example  of  long  ago? 
Men  used  to  say  with  reference  to  Jesus,  “There  was  no 
other  good  enough  to  pay  the  price  of  sin.”  They  say  so 
now  no  longer.  On  the  contrary,  every  man  is  now  re¬ 
garded  as  plenty  good  enough  to  pay  the  price  of  sin  if, 
whether  in  peace  or  in  war,  he  will  only  go  bravely  over 
the  top  in  some  noble  cause. 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  no  mere  man  can  pay  the  pen¬ 
alty  of  another  man’s  sin.  But  it  does  not  follow  that 
Jesus  could  not  do  it;  for  Jesus  was  no  mere  man  but  the 
eternal  Son  of  God.  Jesus  is  master  of  the  innermost 
secrets  of  the  moral  world.  He  has  done  what  none  other 
could  possibly  do ;  He  has  borne  our  sin. 

The  Christian  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  therefore,  is 
altogether  rooted  in  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  deity  of 
Christ.  The  reality  of  an  atonement  for  sin  depends 
altogether  upon  the  New  Testament  presentation  of  the 
Person  of  Christ.  And  even  the  hymns  dealing  with  the 
Cross  which  we  sing  in  Church  can  be  placed  in  an  ascend- 

1  For  what  follows,  compare  “The  Church  in  the  War,”  in  The 
Presbyterian,  for  May  29,  1919,  pp.  lOf. 


Salvation 


127 


in g  scale  according  as  they  are  based  upon  a  lower  or  a 
higher  view  of  Jesus’  Person.  At  the  very  bottom  of  the 
scale  is  that  familiar  hymn: 

Nearer,  my  God,  to  thee. 

Nearer  to  thee ! 

E’en  though  it  be  a  cross 
That  raiseth  me. 

That  is  a  perfectly  good  hymn.  It  means  that  our  trials 
may  be  a  discipline  to  bring  us  nearer  to  God.  The 
thought  is  not  opposed  to  Christianity ;  it  is  found  in  the 
New  Testament.  But  many  persons  have  the  impression, 
because  the  word  “cross”  is  found  in  the  hymn,  that  there 
is  something  specifically  Christian  about  it,  and  that  it 
has  something  to  do  with  the  gospel.  This  impression  is 
entirely  false.  In  reality,  the  cross  that  is  spoken  of  is 
not  the  Cross  of  Christ,  but  our  own  cross ;  the  verse 
simply  means  that  our  own  crosses  or  trials  may  be  a 
means  to  bring  us  nearer  to  God.  It  is  a  perfectly  good 
thought,  but  certainly  it  is  not  the  gospel.  One  can  only 
be  sorry  that  the  people  on  the  Titanic  could  not  find  a 
better  hymn  to  die  by  than  that. 

But  there  is  another  hymn  in  the  hymn-book : 

In  the  cross  of  Christ  I  glory, 

Towering  o’er  the  wrecks  of  time; 

All  the  light  of  sacred  story 
Gathers  round  its  head  sublime. 

That  is  certainly  better.  It  is  here  not  our  own  crosses 
but  the  Cross  of  Christ,  the  actual  event  that  took  place 
on  Calvary,  that  is  spoken  of,  and  that  event  is  celebrated 
as  the  centre  of  all  history.  Certainly  the  Christian  man 
can  sing  that  hymn.  But  one  misses  even  there  the  full 
Christian  sense  of  the  meaning  of  the  Cross ;  the  Cross  is 
celebrated,  but  it  is  not  understood. 


128  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

It  is  well,  therefore,  that  there  is  another  hymn  in  our 
hymn-book : 

When  I  survey  the  wondrous  cross 
On  which  the  Prince  of  glory  died. 

My  richest  gain  I  count  but  loss, 

And  pour  contempt  on  all  my  pride. 

There  at  length  are  heard  the  accents  of  true  Christian 
feeling — “the  wondrous  cross  on  which  the  Prince  of 
glory  died.”  When  we  come  to  see  that  it  was  no  mere 
man  who  suffered  on  Calvary  but  the  Lord  of  Glory,  then 
we  shall  be  willing  to  say  that  one  drop  of  the  precious 
blood  of  Jesus  is  of  more  value,  for  our  own  salvation  and 
for  the  hope  of  society,  than  all  the  rivers  of  blood  that 
have  flowed  upon  the  battlefields  of  history. 

Thus  the  objection  to  the  vicarious  sacrifice  of  Christ 
disappears  altogether  before  the  tremendous  Christian 
sense  of  the  majesty  of  Jesus’  Person.  It  is  perfectly  true 
that  the  Christ  of  modern  naturalistic  reconstruction 
never  could  have  suffered  for  the  sins  of  others ;  but  it  is 
very  different  in  the  case  of  the  Lord  of  Glory.  And  if 
the  notion  of  vicarious  atonement  be  so  absurd  as  modern 
opposition  would  lead  us  to  believe,  what  shall  be  said  of 
the  Christian  experience  that  has  been  based  upon  it  ?  The 
modern  liberal  Church  is  fond  of  appealing  to  experience. 
But  where  shall  true  Christian  experience  be  found  if  not 
in  the  blessed  peace  which  comes  from  Calvary?  That 
peace  comes  only  when  a  man  recognizes  that  all  his 
striving  to  be  right  with  God,  all  his  feverish  endeavor  to 
keep  the  Law  before  he  can  be  saved,  is  unnecessary,  and 
that  the  Lord  Jesus  has  wiped  out  the  handwriting  that 
was  against  him  by  dying  instead  of  him  on  the  Cross. 
Who  can  measure  the  depth  of  the  peace  and  joy  that 
comes  from  this  blessed  knowledge?  Is  it  a  “theory  of 


Salvation  129 

the  atonement,”  a  delusion  of  man’s  fancy?  Or  is  it  the 
very  truth  of  God? 

But  still  another  objection  remains  against  the  Chris¬ 
tian  doctrine  of  the  Cross.  The  objection  concerns  the 
character  of  God.  What  a  degraded  view  of  God  it  is,  the 
modern  liberal  exclaims,  when  God  is  represented  as  being 
“alienated”  from  man,  and  as  waiting  coldly  until  a  price 
be  paid  before  He  grants  salvation!  In  reality,  we  are 
told,  God  is  more  willing  to  forgive  sin  than  we  are  willing 
to  be  forgiven ;  reconciliation,  therefore,  can  have  to  do 
only  with  man ;  it  all  depends  upon  us ;  God  will  receive 
us  any  time  we  choose. 

The  objection  depends  of  course  upon  the  liberal  view 
of  sin.  If  sin  is  so  trifling  a  matter  as  the  liberal  Church 
supposes,  then  indeed  the  curse  of  God’s  law  can  be  taken 
very  lightly,  and  God  can  easily  let  by-gones  be  by-gones. 

This  business  of  letting  by-gones  be  by-gones  has  a 
pleasant  sound.  But  in  reality  it  is  the  most  heartless 
thing  in  the  world.  It  will  not  do  at  all  even  in  the  case 
of  sins  committed  against  our  fellow-men.  To  say  nothing 
of  sin  against  God,  what  shall  be  done  about  the  harm  that 
we  have  wrought  to  our  neighbor?  Sometimes,  no  doubt, 
the  harm  can  be  repaired.  If  we  have  defrauded  our 
neighbor  of  a  sum  of  money,  we  can  pay  the  sum  back 
with  interest.  But  in  the  case  of  the  more  serious  wrongs 
such  repayment  is  usually  quite  impossible.  The  more 
serious  wrongs  are  those  that  are  done,  not  to  the  bodies, 
but  to  the  souls  of  men.  And  who  can  think  with  com¬ 
placency  of  wrongs  of  that  kind  which  he  has  committed? 
Who  can  bear  to  think,  for  example,  of  the  harm  that  he 
has  done  to  those  younger  than  himself  by  a  bad  example? 
And  what  of  those  sad  words,  spoken  to  those  we  love, 
that  have  left  scars  never  to  be  obliterated  by  the  hand  of 
time?  In  the  presence  of  such  memories,  we  are  told  by 


130  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

the  modern  preacher  simply  to  repent  and  to  let  by-gones 
be  by-gones.  But  what  a  heartless  thing  is  such  repent¬ 
ance!  We  escape  into  some  higher,  happier,  respectable 
life.  But  what  of  those  whom  we  by  our  example  and  by 
our  words  have  helped  to  drag  down  to  the  brink  of  hell? 
We  forget  them  and  let  by-gones  be  by-gones ! 

Such  repentance  will  never  wipe  out  the  guilt  of  sin — 1 
not  even  sin  committed  against  our  fellow-men,  to  say 
nothing  of  sin  against  our  God.  The  truly  penitent  man 
longs  to  wipe  out  the  effects  of  sin,  not  merely  to  forget 
sin.  But  who  can  wipe  out  the  effects  of  sin?  Others  are 
suffering  because  of  our  past  sins ;  and  we  can  attain  no 
real  peace  until  we  suffer  in  their  stead.  We  long  to  go, 
back  into  the  tangle  of  our  life,  and  make  right  the  things 
that  are  wrong — at  least  to  suffer  where  we  have  caused 
others  to  suffer.  And  that  is  exactly  what  Christ  did  for 
us  when  He  died  instead  of  us  on  the  cross  ;  He  atoned  for 
all  our  sins. 

The  sorrow  for  sins  committed  against  one’s  fellow- 
men  does  indeed  remain  in  the  Christian’s  heart.  And  he 
will  seek  by  every  means  that  is  within  his  power  to  repair 
the  damage  that  he  has  done.  But  atonement  at  least  has 
been  made — made  as  truly  as  if  the  sinner  himself  had 
suffered  with  and  for  those  whom  he  has  wronged.  And 
the  sinner  himself,  by  a  mystery  of  grace,  becomes  right 
with  God.  All  sin  at  bottom  is  a  sin  against  God. 
“Against  thee,  thee  only  have  I  sinned”  is  the  cry  of  a 
true  penitent.  How  terrible  is  the  sin  against  God !  Who 
can  recall  the  wasted  moments  and  years  ?  Gone  they  are, 
never  to  return ;  gone  the  little  allotted  span  of  life ;  gone 
the  little  day  in  which  a  man  must  work.  Who  can  meas¬ 
ure  the  irrevocable  guilt  of  a  wasted  life?  Yet  even  for 
such  guilt  God  has  provided  a  fountain  of  cleansing  in  the 
precious  blood  of  Christ.  God  has  clothed  us  with  Christ’s 


Salvation 


181 


righteousness  as  with  a  garment ;  in  Christ  we  stand  spot¬ 
less  before  the  judgment  throne. 

Thus  to  deny  the  necessity  of  atonement  is  to  deny  the 
existence  of  a  real  moral  order.  And  it  is  strange  how 
those  who  venture  upon  such  denial  can  regard  themselves 
as  disciples  of  Jesus ;  for  if  one  thing  is  clear  in  the  record 
of  Jesus’  life  it  is  that  Jesus  recognized  the  justice,  as 
distinguished  from  the  love2  of  God.  God  is  love,  accord¬ 
ing  to  Jesus,  but  He  is  not  only  love;  Jesus  spoke,  in 
terrible  words,  of  the  sin  that  shall  never  be  forgiven 
either  in  this  world  or  in  that  which  is  to  come.  Clearly 
Jesus  recognized  the  existence  of  retributive  justice;  Jesus 
was  far  from  accepting  the  light  modern  view  of  sin. 

But  what,  then,  it  will  be  objected,  becomes  of  God’s 
love?  Even  if  it  be  admitted  that  justice  demands  punish¬ 
ment  for  sin,  the  modern  liberal  theologian  will  say,  what 
becomes  of  the  Christian  doctrine  that  justice  is  swal¬ 
lowed  up  by  grace?  If  God  is  represented  as  waiting  for 
a  price  to  be  paid  before  sin  shall  be  forgiven,  perhaps  His 
justice  may  be  rescued,  but  what  becomes  of  His  love? 

Modern  liberal  teachers  are  never  tired  of  ringing  the 
changes  upon  this  objection.  They  speak  with  horror  of 
the  doctrine  of  an  “alienated”  or  an  “angry”  God.  In 
answer,  of  course  it  would  be  easy  to  point  to  the  New 
Testament.  The  New  Testament  clearly  speaks  of  the 
wrath  of  God  and  the  wrath  of  Jesus  Himself ;  and  all  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  presupposes  a  divine  indignation 
against  sin.  With  what  possible  right,  then,  can  those 
who  reject  this  vital  element  in  Jesus’  teaching  and  ex¬ 
ample  regard  themselves  as  true  disciples  of  His?  The 
truth  is  that  the  modern  rejection  of  the  doctrine  of  God’s 
wrath  proceeds  from  a  light  view  of  sin  which  is  totally 
at  variance  with  the  teaching  of  the  whole  New  Testament 
and  of  Jesus  Himself.  If  a  man  has  once  come  under  a 


132  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

true  conviction  of  sin,  he  will  have  little  difficulty  with 
the  doctrine  of  the  Cross. 

But  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  modern  objection  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  atonement  on  the  ground  that  that  doc¬ 
trine  is  contrary  to  the  love  of  God,  is  based  upon  the 
most  abysmal  misunderstanding  of  the  doctrine  itself. 
The  modern  liberal  teachers  persist  in  speaking  of  the 
sacrifice  of  Christ  as  though  it  were  a  sacrifice  made  by 
some  one  other  than  God.  They  speak  of  it  as  though  it 
meant  that  God  waits  coldly  until  a  price  is  paid  to  Him 
before  He  forgives  sin.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  means 
nothing  of  the  kind;  the  objection  ignores  that  which  is 
absolutely  fundamental  in  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the 
Cross.  The  fundamental  thing  is  that  God  Himself,  and 
not  another,  makes  the  sacrifice  for  sin — God  Himself  in 
the  person  of  the  Son  who  assumed  our  nature  and  died 
for  us,  God  Himself  in  the  Person  of  the  Father  who 
spared  not  His  own  Son  but  offered  Him  up  for  us  all. 
Salvation  is  as  free  for  us  as  the  air  we  breathe;  God’s 
the  dreadful  cost,  ours  the  gain.  “God  so  loved  the  world 
that  He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son.”  Such  love  is  very 
different  from  the  complacency  found  in  the  God  of  mod¬ 
ern  preaching;  this  love  is  love  that  did  not  count  the 
cost ;  it  is  love  that  is  love  indeed. 

This  love  and  this  love  alone  brings  true  joy  to  men. 
Joy  is  indeed  being  sought  by  the  modern  liberal  Church. 
But  it  is  being  sought  in  ways  that  are  false.  How  may 
communion  with  God  be  made  joyful?  Obviously,  we  are 
told,  by  emphasizing  the  comforting  attributes  of  God — 
His  long-suffering,  His  love.  Let  us,  it  is  urged,  regard 
Him  not  as  a  moody  Despot,  not  as  a  sternly  righteous 
Judge,  but  simply  as  a  loving  Father.  Away  with  the 
horrors  of  the  old  theology!  Let  us  worship  a  God  in 
whom  we  can  rejoice. 


Salvation 


133 


Two  questions  arise  with  regard  to  this  method  of  mak¬ 
ing  religion  joyful — in  the  first  place,  Does  it  work?  and 
in  the  second  place,  Is  it  true? 

Does  it  work?  It  certainly  ought  to  work.  How  can 
anyone  be  unhappy  when  the  ruler  of  the  universe  is 
declared  to  be  the  loving  Father  of  all  men  who  will  never 
permanently  inflict  pain  upon  His  children?  Where  is 
the  sting  of  remorse  if  all  sin  will  necessarily  be  forgiven? 
Yet  men  are  strangely  ungrateful.  After  the  modern 
preacher  has  done  his  part  with  all  diligence — after  every¬ 
thing  unpleasant  has  carefully  been  eliminated  from  the 
conception  of  God,  after  His  unlimited  love  has  been 
celebrated  with  the  eloquence  that  it  deserves — the  con¬ 
gregation  somehow  persistently  refuses  to  burst  into  the 
old  ecstasies  of  joy.  The  truth  is,  the  God  of  modern 
preaching,  though  He  may  perhaps  be  very  good,  is  rather 
uninteresting.  Nothing  is  so  insipid  as  indiscriminate 
good  humor.  Is  that  really  love  that  costs  so  little?  If 
God  will  necessarily  forgive,  no  matter  what  we  do,  why 
trouble  ourselves  about  Him  at  all?  Such  a  God  may 
deliver  us  from  the  fear  of  hell.  But  His  heaven,  if  He 
has  any,  is  full  of  sin. 

The  other  objection  to  the  modern  encouraging  idea  of 
God  is  that  it  is  not  true.  How  do  you  know  that  God  is 
all  love  and  kindness?  Surely  not  through  nature,  for  it 
is  full  of  horrors.  Human  suffering  may  be  unpleasant, 
but  it  is  real,  and  God  must  have  something  to  do  with  it. 
Just  as  surely  not  through  the  Bible.  For  it  was  from 
the  Bible  that  the  old  theologians  derived  that  conception 
of  God  which  you  would  reject  as  gloomy.  “The  Lord, 
thy  God,”  the  Bible  says,  “is  a  consuming  fire.”  Or  is 
Jesus  alone  your  authority?  You  are  no  better  off.  For 
it  was  Jesus  who  spoke  of  the  outer  darkness  and  the  ever¬ 
lasting  fire,  of  the  sin  that  shall  not  be  forgiven  either  in 


134  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

this  age  or  in  that  which  is  to  come.  Or  do  you  appeal, 
for  your  comforting  idea  of  God,  to  a  twentieth-century 
revelation  granted  immediately  to  you?  It  is  to  be  feared 
that  you  will  convince  no  one  but  yourself. 

Religion  cannot  be  made  joyful  simply  by  looking  on 
the  bright  side  of  God.  For  a  one-sided  God  is  not  a  real 
God,  and  it  is  the  real  God  alone  who  can  satisfy  the 
longing  of  our  soul.  God  is  love,  but  is  He  only  love? 
God  is  love,  but  is  love  God?  Seek  joy  alone,  then,  seek 
joy  at  any  cost,  and  you  will  not  find  it.  How  then  may  it 
be  attained? 

The  search  for  joy  in  religion  seems  to  have  ended  in 
disaster.  God  is  found  to  be  enveloped  in  impenetrable 
mystery,  and  in  awful  righteousness ;  man  is  confined  in 
the  prison  of  the  world,  trying  to  make  the  best  of  his  con¬ 
dition,  beautifying  the  prison  with  tinsel,  yet  secretly  dis¬ 
satisfied  with  his  bondage,  dissatisfied  with  a  merely  rela¬ 
tive  goodness  which  is  no  goodness  at  all,  dissatisfied  with 
the  companionship  of  his  sinful  fellows,  unable  to  forget 
his  heavenly  destiny  and  his  heavenly  duty,  longing  for 
communion  with  the  Holy  One.  There  seems  to  be  no 
hope ;  God  is  separate  from  sinners ;  there  is  no  room  for 
joy,  but  only  a  certain  fearful  looking  for  of  judgment 
and  fiery  indignation. 

Yet  such  a  God  has  at  least  one  advantage  over  the 
comforting  God  of  modern  preaching — He  is  alive,  He  is 
sovereign,  He  is  not  bound  by  His  creation  or  by  His 
creatures,  He  can  perform  wonders.  Could  He  even  save 
us  if  He  would?  He  has  saved  us — in  that  message  the 
gospel  consists.  It  could  not  have  been  foretold;  still  less 
could  the  manner  of  it  have  been  foretold.  That  Birth, 
that  Life,  that  Death — why  was  it  done  just  thus  and 
then  and  there?  It  all  seems  so  very  local,  so  very  par¬ 
ticular,  so  very  unphilosophical,  so  very  unlike  what  might 


Salvation 


135 


have  been  expected.  Are  not  our  own  methods  of  salva¬ 
tion,  men  say,  better  than  that?  “Are  not  Abana  and 
Pharpar,  rivers  of  Damascus,  better  than  all  the  waters  of 
Israel?”  Yet  what  if  it  were  true?  “So,  the  All-Great 
were  the  All-Loving  too” — God’s  own  Son  delivered  up  for 
us  all,  freedom  from  the  world,  sought  by  philosophers  of 
all  the  ages,  offered  now  freely  to  every  simple  soul,  things 
hidden  from  the  wise  and  prudent  revealed  unto  babes,  the 
long  striving  over,  the  impossible  accomplished,  sin  con¬ 
quered  by  mysterious  grace,  communion  at  length  with  the 
holy  God,  our  Father  which  art  in  heaven! 

Surely  this  and  this  alone  is  joy.  But  it  is  a  joy  that  is 
akin  to  fear.  It  is  a  fearful  thing  to  fall  into  the  hands 
of  the  living  God.  Were  we  not  safer  with  a  God  of  our 
own  devising — love  and  only  love,  a  Father  and  nothing 
else,  one  before  whom  we  could  stand  in  our  own  merit 
without  fear?  Let  him  who  will  be  satisfied  with  such  a 
God.  But  we,  God  help  us — sinful  as  we  are,  we  would 
see  Jehovah.  Despairing,  hoping,  trembling,  half-doubt¬ 
ing  and  half-believing,  trusting  all  to  Jesus,  we  venture 
into  the  presence  of  the  very  God.  And  in  His  presence 
we  live. 

The  atoning  death  of  Christ,  and  that  alone,  has  pre¬ 
sented  sinners  as  righteous  in  God’s  sight;  the  Lord  Jesus 
has  paid  the  full  penalty  of  their  sins,  and  clothed  them 
with  His  perfect  righteousness  before  the  judgment  seat 
of  God.  But  Christ  has  done  for  Christians  even  far  more 
than  that.  He  has  given  to  them  not  only  a  new  and 
right  relation  to  God,  but  a  new  life  in  God’s  presence  for 
evermore.  He  has  saved  them  from  the  power  as  well  as 
from  the  guilt  of  sin.  The  New  Testament  does  not  end 
with  the  death  of  Christ ;  it  does  not  end  with  the  trium¬ 
phant  words  of  Jesus  on  the  Cross,  “It  is  finished.”  The 
death  was  followed  by  the  resurrection,  and  the  resurrec- 


136  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

tion  like  the  death  was  for  our  sakes.  Jesus  rose  from  the 
dead  into  a  new  life  of  glory  and  power,  and  into  that  life 
He  brings  those  for  whom  He  died.  The  Christian,  on  the 
basis  of  Christ’s  redeeming  work,  not  only  has  died  unto 
sin,  but  also  lives  unto  God. 

Thus  was  completed  the  redeeming  work  of  Christ — the 
work  for  which  He  entered  into  the  world.  The  account 
of  that  work  is  the  “gospel,”  the  “good  news.”  It  never 
could  have  been  predicted,  for  sin  deserves  naught  but 
eternal  death.  But  God  triumphed  over  sin  through  the 
grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

But  how  is  the  redeeming  work  of  Christ  applied  to  the 
individual  Christian  man?  The  answer  of  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  is  plain.  According  to  the  New  Testament  the  work 
of  Christ  is  applied  to  the  individual  Christian  man  by  the 
Holy  Spirit.  And  this  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  part  of 
the  creative  work  of  God.  It  is  not  accomplished  by  the 
ordinary  use  of  means ;  it  is  not  accomplished  merely  by 
using  the  good  that  is  already  in  man.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  something  new.  It  is  not  an  influence  upon  the  life, 
but  the  beginning  of  a  new  life;  it  is  not  development  of 
what  we  had  already,  but  a  new  birth.  At  the  very  centre 
of  Christianity  are  the  words,  “Ye  must  be  born  again.” 

These  words  are  despised  to-day.  They  involve  super¬ 
naturalism,  and  the  modern  man  is  opposed  to  supernatu¬ 
ralism  in  the  experience  of  the  individual  as  much  as  in 
the  realm  of  history.  A  cardinal  doctrine  of  modern 
liberalism  is  that  the  world’s  evil  may  be  overcome  by  the 
world’s  good;  no  help  is  thought  to  be  needed  from  out¬ 
side  the  world. 

This  doctrine  is  propagated  in  various  ways.  It  runs 
all  through  the  popular  literature  of  our  time.  It  domi¬ 
nates  religious  literature,  and  it  appears  even  upon  the 
stage.  Some  years  ago  great  popularity  was  attained  by 


Salvation 


137 


a  play  which  taught  the  doctrine  in  powerful  fashion.  The 
play  began  with  a  scene  in  a  London  boarding-house.  And 
it  was  a  very  discouraging  scene.  The  persons  in  that 
boarding-house  were  not  by  any  means  desperate  crim¬ 
inals,  but  one  could  almost  have  wished  that  they  had  been 
— they  would  have  been  so  much  more  interesting.  As  it 
was,  they  were  simply  sordid,  selfish  persons,  snapping 
and  snarling  about  things  to  eat  and  about  creature  com¬ 
forts — the  sort  of  persons  about  whom  one  is  tempted  to 
say  that  they  have  no  souls.  The  scene  was  a  powerful 
picture  of  the  hideousness  of  the  commonplace.  But 
presently  the  mysterious  stranger  of  “the  third  floor 
back”  entered  upon  the  scene,  and  all  was  changed.  He 
had  no  creed  to  offer,  and  no  religion.  But  he  simply  en¬ 
gaged  in  conversation  with  everyone  in  that  boarding¬ 
house,  and  discovered  the  one  good  point  in  every  indi¬ 
vidual  life.  Somewhere  in  every  life  there  was  some  one 
good  thing — some  one  true  human  affection,  some  one 
noble  ambition.  It  had  long  been  hidden  by  a  thick  coat¬ 
ing  of  sordidness  and  selfishness ;  its  very  existence  had 
been  forgotten.  But  it  was  there,  and  when  it  was  brought 
to  the  light  the  whole  life  was  transformed.  Thus  the  evil 
that  was  in  man  was  overcome  by  the  good  that  was  al¬ 
ready  there. 

The  same  thing  is  taught  in  more  immediately  practical 
ways.  For  example,  there  are  those  who  would  apply  it 
to  the  prisoners  in  our  jails.  The  inmates  of  jails  and 
penitentiaries  constitute  no  doubt  unpromising  material. 
But  it  is  a  great  mistake,  it  is  said,  to  tell  them  that  they 
are  bad,  to  discourage  them  by  insisting  upon  their  sin. 
On  the  contrary,  we  are  told,  what  ought  to  be  done  is  to 
find  the  good  that  is  already  in  them  and  build  upon  that ; 
we  ought  to  appeal  to  some  latent  sense  of  honor  which 
shows  that  even  criminals  possess  the  remnants  of  our 


138  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

common  human  nature.  Thus  again  the  evil  that  is  in 
man  is  to  be  overcome  not  by  a  foreign  good  but  by  a  good 
which  man  himself  possesses. 

Certainly  there  is  a  large  element  of  truth  in  this  mod¬ 
ern  principle.  That  element  of  truth  is  found  in  the 
Bible.  The  Bible  does  certainly  teach  that  the  good  that 
is  already  in  man  ought  to  be  fostered  in  order  to  check 
the  evil.  Whatsoever  things  are  true  and  pure  and  of 
good  report — we  ought  to  think  on  those  things.  Cer¬ 
tainly  the  principle  of  overcoming  the  world’s  evil  by  the 
good  already  in  the  world  is  a  great  principle.  The  old 
theologians  recognized  it  to  the  full  in  their  doctrine  of 
“common  grace.”  There  is  something  in  the  world  even 
apart  from  Christianity  which  restrains  the  worst  mani¬ 
festations  of  evil.  And  that  something  ought  to  be  used. 
Without  the  use  of  it,  this  world  could  not  be  lived  in  for 
a  day.  The  use  of  it  is  certainly  a  great  principle ;  it  will 
certainly  accomplish  many  useful  things. 

But  there  is  one  thing  which  it  will  not  accomplish.  It 
will  not  remove  the  disease  of  sin.  It  will  indeed  palliate 
the  symptoms  of  the  disease ;  it  will  change  the  form  of  the 
disease.  Sometimes  the  disease  is  hidden,  and  there  are 
those  who  think  that  it  is  cured.  But  then  it  bursts  forth 
in  some  new  way,  as  in  1914,  and  startles  the  world.  What 
is  really  needed  is  not  a  salve  to  palliate  the  symptoms  of 
sin,  but  a  remedy  that  attacks  the  root  of  the  disease. 

In  reality,  however,  the  figure  of  disease  is  misleading. 
The  only  true  figure — if  indeed  it  can  be  called  merely  a 
figure — is  the  one  which  is  used  in  the  Bible.  Man  is  not 
merely  ill,  but  he  is  dead,  in  trespasses  and  sins,  and  what 
is  really  needed  is  a  new  life.  That  life  is  given  by  the 
Holy  Spirit  in  “regeneration”  or  the  new  birth. 

Many  are  the  passages  and  many  are  the  ways  in  which 
the  central  doctrine  of  the  new  birth  is  taught  in  the  Word 


Salvation 


139 


of  God.  One  of  the  most  stupendous  passages  is  Gal. 
ii.  20 :  “I  have  been  crucified  with  Christ ;  and  it  is  no 
longer  I  that  live  but  Christ  liveth  in  me.”  That  passage 
was  called  by  Bengel  the  marrow  of  Christianity.  And  it 
was  rightly  so  called.  It  refers  to  the  objective  basis  of 
Christianity  in  the  redeeming  work  of  Christ,  and  it  con¬ 
tains  also  the  supernaturalism  of  Christian  experience. 
“It  is  no  longer  I  that  live,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me” — these 
are  extraordinary  words.  “If  you  look  upon  Christians,” 
Paul  says  in  effect,  “you  see  so  many  manifestations  of  the 
life  of  Christ.”  Undoubtedly  if  the  words  of  Gal.  ii.  20 
stood  alone  they  might  be  taken  in  a  mystical  or  pan¬ 
theistic  sense ;  they  might  be  taken  to  involve  the  merging 
of  the  personality  of  the  Christian  in  the  personality  of 
Christ.  But  Paul  had  no  reason  to  fear  such  a  misinter¬ 
pretation,  for  he  had  fortified  himself  against  it  by  the 
whole  of  his  teaching.  The  new  relation  of  the  Christian 
to  Christ,  according  to  Paul,  involves  no  loss  of  the  sepa¬ 
rate  personality  of  the  Christian ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
everywhere  intensely  personal ;  it  is  not  a  merely  mystical 
relationship  to  the  All  or  the  Absolute,  but  a  relationship 
of  love  existing  between  one  person  and  another.  Just 
because  Paul  had  fortified  himself  against  misunderstand¬ 
ing,  he  was  not  afraid  of  an  extreme  boldness  of  language. 
“It  is  no  longer  I  that  live,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me” — these 
words  involve  a  tremendous  conception  of  the  break  that 
comes  in  a  man’s  life  when  he  becomes  a  Christian.  It  is 
almost  as  though  he  became  a  new  person — so  stupendous 
is  the  change.  These  words  were  not  written  by  a  man 
who  believed  that  Christianity  means  merely  the  entrance 
of  a  new  motive  into  the  life ;  Paul  believed  with  all  his 
mind  and  heart  in  the  doctrine  of  the  new  creation  or  the 
new  birth. 

That  doctrine  represents  one  aspect  of  the  salvation 


140  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

which  was  wrought  by  Christ  and  is  applied  by  His  Spirit. 
But  there  is  another  aspect  of  the  same  salvation.  Regen¬ 
eration  means  a  new  life ;  but  there  is  also  a  new  relation 
in  which  the  believer  stands  toward  God.  That  new  rela¬ 
tion  is  instituted  by  “justification” — the  act  of  God  by 
which  a  sinner  is  pronounced  righteous  in  His  sight  be¬ 
cause  of  the  atoning  death  of  Christ.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  ask  whether  justification  comes  before  regeneration  or 
vice  versa;  in  reality  they  are  two  aspects  of  one  salva¬ 
tion.  And  they  both  stand  at  the  very  beginning  of  the 
Christian  life.  The  Christian  has  not  merely  the  promise 
of  a  new  life,  but  he  has  already  a  new  life.  And  he  has 
not  merely  the  promise  of  being  pronounced  righteous  in 
God’s  sight  (though  the  blessed  pronouncement  will  be 
confirmed  on  the  judgment  day),  but  he  is  already  pro¬ 
nounced  righteous  here  and  now.  At  the  beginning  of 
every  Christian  life  there  stands,  not  a  process,  but  a 
definite  act  of  God. 

That  does  not  mean  that  every  Christian  can  tell 
exactly  at  what  moment  he  was  justified  and  born  again. 
Some  Christians,  indeed,  are  really  able  to  give  day  and 
hour  of  their  conversion.  It  is  a  grievous  sin  to  ridicule 
the  experience  of  such  men.  Sometimes,  indeed,  they  are 
inclined  to  ignore  the  steps  in  the  providence  of  God  which 
prepared  for  the  great  change.  But  they  are  right  on  the 
main  point.  They  know  that  when  on  such  and  such  a  day 
they  kneeled  in  prayer  they  were  still  in  their  sins,  and 
when  they  rose  from  their  knees  they  were  children  of  God 
never  to  be  separated  from  Him.  Such  experience  is  a  very 
holy  thing.  But  on  the  other  hand  it  is  a  mistake  to  de¬ 
mand  that  it  should  be  universal.  There  are  Christians 
who  can  give  day  and  hour  of  their  conversion,  but  the 
great  majority  do  not  know  exactly  at  what  moment  they 
were  saved.  The  effects  of  the  act  are  plain,  but  the  act 


Salvation 


141 


itself  was  done  in  the  quietness  of  God.  Such,  very  often, 
is  the  experience  of  children  brought  up  by  Christian 
parents.  It  is  not  necessary  that  all  should  pass  through 
agonies  of  soul  before  being  saved ;  there  are  those  to 
whom  faith  comes  peacefully  and  easily  through  the  nur¬ 
ture  of  Christian  homes. 

But  however  it  be  manifested,  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  life  is  an  act  of  God.  It  is  an  act  of  God  and 
not  an  act  of  man. 

That  does  not  mean,  however,  that  in  the  beginning  of 
the  Christian  life  God  deals  with  us  as  with  sticks  or 
stones,  unable  to  understand  what  is  being  done.  On  the 
contrary  He  deals  with  us  as  with  persons ;  salvation  has 
a  place  in  the  conscious  life  of  man ;  God  uses  in  our  sal¬ 
vation  a  conscious  act  of  the  human  soul — an  act  which 
though  it  is  itself  the  work  of  God’s  Spirit,  is  at  the  same 
time  an  act  of  man.  That  act  of  man  which  God  produces 
and  employs  in  salvation  is  faith.  At  the  centre  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  is  the  doctrine  of  “ justification  by  faith.” 

In  exalting  faith,  we  are  not  immediately  putting  our¬ 
selves  in  contradiction  to  modern  thought.  Indeed  faith 
is  being  exalted  very  high  by  men  of  the  most  modern 
type.  But  what  kind  of  faith?  There  emerges  the  differ¬ 
ence  of  opinion. 

Faith  is  being  exalted  so  high  to-day  that  men  are 
being  satisfied  with  any  kind  of  faith,  just  so  it  is  faith. 
It  makes  no  difference  what  is  believed,  we  are  told,  just 
so  the  blessed  attitude  of  faith  is  there.  The  undogmatic 
faith,  it  is  said,  is  better  than  the  dogmatic,  because  it  is 
purer  faith — faith  less  weakened  by  the  alloy  of  knowl¬ 
edge. 

Now  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  such  employment  of  faith 
merely  as  a  beneficent  state  of  the  soul  is  bringing  some 
results.  Faith  in  the  most  absurd  things  sometimes  pro- 


142  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

duces  the  most  beneficent  and  far-reaching  results.  But 
the  disturbing  thing  is  that  all  faith  has  an  object.  The 
scientific  observer  may  not  think  that  it  is  the  object  that 
does  the  work;  from  his  vantage  point  he  may  see  clearly 
that  it  is  really  the  faith,  considered  simply  as  a  psycho¬ 
logical  phenomenon,  that  is  the  important  thing,  and  that 
any  other  object  would  have  answered  as  well.  But  the 
one  who  does  the  believing  is  always  convinced  just  exactly 
that  it  is  not  the  faith,  but  the  object  of  the  faith,  which 
is  helping  him.  The  moment  he  becomes  convinced  that  it 
is  merely  the  faith  that  is  helping  him,  the  faith  disap¬ 
pears ;  for  faith  always  involves  a  conviction  of  the  objec¬ 
tive  truth  or  trustworthiness  of  the  object.  If  the  object 
is  not  really  trustworthy  then  the  faith  is  a  false  faith. 
It  is  perfectly  true  that  such  a  false  faith  will  often  help 
a  man.  Things  that  are  false  will  accomplish  a  great 
many  useful  things  in  the  world.  If  I  take  a  counterfeit 
coin  and  buy  a  dinner  with  it,  the  dinner  is  every  bit  as 
good  as  if  the  coin  were  a  product  of  the  mint.  And  what 
a  very  useful  thing  a  dinner  is  !  But  just  as  I  am  on  my 
way  downtown  to  buy  a  dinner  for  a  poor  man,  an  expert 
tells  me  that  my  coin  is  a  counterfeit.  /The  miserable, 
heartless  theorizer !  While  he  is  going  into  uninteresting, 
learned  details  about  the  primitive  history  of  that  coin,  a 
poor  man  is  dying  for  want  of  bread.  So  it  is  with  faith. 
Faith  is  so  very  useful,  they  tell  us,  that  we  must  not 
scrutinize  its  basis  in  truth.  But,  the  great  trouble  is, 
such  an  avoidance  of  scrutiny  itself  involves  the  destruc¬ 
tion  of  faith.  For  faith  is  essentially  dogmatic.  Despite 
all  you  can  do,  you  cannot  remove  the  element  of  intellec¬ 
tual  assent  from  it.  Faith  is  the  opinion  that  some  person 
will  do  something  for  you.  If  that  person  really  will  do 
that  thing  for  you,  then  the  faith  is  true.  If  he  will  not 
do  it,  then  the  fa,ith  is  false.  In  the  latter  case?  not  all 


Salvation 


143 


the  benefits  in  the  world  will  make  the  faith  true.  Though 
it  has  transformed  the  world  from  darkness  to  light, 
though  it  has  produced  thousands  of  glorious  healthy 
lives,  it  remains  a  pathological  phenomenon.  It  is  false, 
and  sooner  or  later  it  is  sure  to  be  found  out. 

Such  counterfeits  should  be  removed,  not  out  of  a  love 
of  destruction,  but  in  order  to  leave  room  for  the  pure 
gold,  the  existence  of  which  is  implied  in  the  presence  of 
the  counterfeits.  Faith  is  often  based  upon  error,  but 
there  would  be  no  faith  at  all  unless  it  were  sometimes 
based  upon  truth.  But  if  Christian  faith  is  based  upon 
truth,  then  it  is  not  the  faith  which  saves  the  Christian  but 
the  object  of  the  faith.  And  the  object  of  the  faith  is 
Christ.  Faith,  then,  according  to  the  Christian  view, 
means  simply  receiving  a  gift.  To  have  faith  in  Christ 
means  to  cease  trying  to  win  God’s  favor  by  one’s  own 
character ;  the  man  who  believes  in  Christ  simply  accepts 
the  sacrifice  which  Christ  offered  on  Calvary.  The  result 
of  such  faith  is  a  new  life  and  all  good  works ;  but  the 
salvation  itself  is  an  absolutely  free  gift  of  God. 

Very  different  is  the  conception  of  faith  which  prevails 
in  the  liberal  Church.  According  to  modern  liberalism, 
faith  is  essentially  the  same  as  “making  Christ  Master”  in 
one’s  life;  at  least  it  is  by  making  Christ  Master  in  the 
life  that  the  welfare  of  men  is  sought.  But  that  simply 
means  that  salvation  is  thought  to  be  obtained  by  our 
own  obedience  to  the  commands  of  Christ.  Such  teaching 
is  just  a  sublimated  form  of  legalism.  Not  the  sacrifice 
of  Christ,  on  this  view,  but  our  own  obedience  to  God’s 
law,  is  the  ground  of  hope. 

In  this  way  the  whole  achievement  of  the  Reformation 
has  been  given  up,  and  there  has  been  a  return  to  the 
religion  of  the  Middle  Ages.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  God  raised  up  a  man  who  began  to  read 


144  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  with  his  own  eyes.  The  result 
was  the  rediscovery  of  the  doctrine  of  justification  by 
faith.  Upon  that  rediscovery  has  been  based  the  whole  of 
our  evangelical  freedom.  As  expounded  by  Luther  and 
Calvin  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  became  the  ‘‘Magna 
Charta  of  Christian  liberty.”  But  modern  liberalism  has 
returned  to  the  old  interpretation  of  Galatians  which  was 
urged  against  the  Reformers.  Thus  Professor  Burton’s 
elaborate  commentary  on  the  Epistle,  despite  all  its  ex¬ 
tremely  valuable  modern  scholarship,  is  in  one  respect  a 
mediaeval  book ;  it  has  returned  to  an  anti-Reformation 
exegesis,  by  which  Paul  is  thought  to  be  attacking  in  the 
Epistle  only  the  piecemeal  morality  of  the  Pharisees.  In 
reality,  of  course,  the  object  of  Paul’s  attack  is  the 
thought  that  in  any  way  man  can  earn  his  acceptance 
with  God.  What  Paul  is  primarily  interested  in  is  not 
spiritual  religion  over  against  ceremonialism,  but  the  free 
grace  of  God  over  against  human  merit. 

The  grace  of  God  is  rejected  by  modern  liberalism.  And 
the  result  is  slavery — the  slavery  of  the  law,  the  wretched 
bondage  by  which  man  undertakes  the  impossible  task  of 
establishing  his  own  righteousness  as  a  ground  of  accept¬ 
ance  with  God.  It  may  seem  strange  at  first  sight  that 
“liberalism,”  of  which  the  very  name  means  freedom, 
should  in  reality  be  wretched  slavery.  But  the  phenom¬ 
enon  is  not  really  so  strange.  Emancipation  from  the 
blessed  will  of  God  always  involves  bondage  to  some  worse 
taskmaster. 

Thus  it  may  be  said  of  the  modern  liberal  Church,  as  of 
the  Jerusalem  of  Paul’s  day,  that  “she  is  in  bondage  with 
her  children.”  God  grant  that  she  may  turn  again  to  the 
liberty  of  the  gospel  of  Christ ! 

The  liberty  of  the  gospel  depends  upon  the  gift  of  God 
by  which  the  Christian  life  is  begun — a  gift  which  involves 


Salvation 


145 


justification,  or  the  removal  of  the  guilt  of  sin  and  the 
establishment  of  a  right  relation  between  the  believer  and 
God,  and  regeneration  or  the  new  birth,  which  makes  of 
the  Christian  man  a  new  creature. 

But  there  is  one  obvious  objection  to  this  high  doctrine, 
and  the  objection  leads  on  to  a  fuller  account  of  the 
Christian  way  of  salvation.  The  obvious  objection  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  new  creation  is  that  it  does  not  seem  to  be 
in  accord  with  the  observed  fact.  Are  Christians  really 
new  creatures?  It  certainly  does  not  seem  so.  They  are 
subject  to  the  same  old  conditions  of  life  to  which  they 
were  subject  before;  if  you  look  upon  them  you  cannot 
notice  any  very  obvious  change.  They  have  the  same 
weaknesses,  and,  unfortunately,  they  have  sometimes  the 
same  sins.  The  new  creation,  if  it  be  really  new,  does  not 
seem  to  be  very  perfect ;  God  can  hardly  look  upon  it  and 
say,  as  of  the  first  creation,  that  it  is  all  very  good. 

This  is  a  very  real  objection.  But  Paul  meets  it  glori¬ 
ously  in  the  very  same  verse,  already  considered,  in  which 
the  doctrine  of  the  new  creation  is  so  boldly  proclaimed. 
“It  is  no  longer  I  that  live,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me” — that 
is  the  doctrine  of  the  new  creation.  But  immediately  the 
objection  is  taken  up;  “The  life  which  I  now  live  in  the 
flesh,”  Paul  continues,  “I  live  by  the  faith  which  is  in  the 
Son  of  God  who  loved  me  and  gave  Himself  for  me.” 
“The  life  which  I  now  live  in  the  flesh” — there  is  the  admis¬ 
sion.  Paul  admits  that  the  Christian  does  live  a  life  in 
the  flesh,  subject  to  the  same  old  earthly  conditions  and 
with  a  continued  battle  against  sin.  “But,”  says  Paul, 
(and  here  the  objection  is  answered),  “the  life  which  I 
now  live  in  the  flesh  I  live  by  the  faith  which  is  in  the  Son 
of  God  who  loved  me  and  gave  Himself  for  me.”  The 
Christian  life  is  lived  by  faith  and  not  by  sight ;  the  great 
change  has  not  yet  come  to  full  fruition;  sin  has  not  yet 


146  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

been  fully  conquered;  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  life 
is  a  new  birth ,  not  an  immediate  creation  of  the  full- 
grown  man.  But  although  the  new  life  has  not  yet  come 
to  full  fruition,  the  Christian  knows  that  the  fruition  will 
not  fail ;  he  is  confident  that  the  God  who  has  begun  a 
good  work  in  him  will  complete  it  unto  the  day  of  Christ ; 
he  knows  that  the  Christ  who  has  loved  him  and  given 
Himself  for  him  will  not  fail  him  now,  but  through  the 
Holy  Spirit  will  build  him  up  unto  the  perfect  man.  That 
is  what  Paul  means  by  living  the  Christian  life  by  faith. 

Thus  the  Christian  life,  though  it  begins  by  a  momen¬ 
tary  act  of  God,  is  continued  by  a  process.  In  other 
words — to  use  theological  language — justification  and 
regeneration  are  followed  by  sanctification.  In  principle 
the  Christian  is  already  free  from  the  present  evil  world, 
but  in  practice  freedom  must  still  be  attained.  Thus  the 
Christian  life  is  not  a  life  of  idleness,  but  a  battle. 

That  is  what  Paul  means  when  he  speaks  of  faith  work¬ 
ing  through  love  (Gal.  v.  6).  The  faith  that  he  makes 
the  means  of  salvation  is  not  an  idle  faith,  like  the  faith 
which  is  condemned  in  the  Epistle  of  James,  but  a  faith 
that  works.  The  work  that  it  performs  is  love,  and  what «/ 
love  is  Paul  explains  in  the  last  section  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Galatians.  Love,  in  the  Christian  sense,  is  not  a  mere 
emotion,  but  a  very  practical  and  a  very  comprehensive 
thing.  It  involves  nothing  less  than  the  keeping  of  the 
whole  law  of  God.  “The  whole  law  is  fulfilled  in  one  word, 
even  in  this :  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself .” 
Yet  the  practical  results  of  faith  do  not  mean  that  faith 
itself  is  a  work.  It  is  a  significant  thing  that  in  that  last 
“practical”  section  of  Galatians  Paul  does  not  say  that 
faith  produces  the  life  of  love;  he  says  that  the  Spirit  of 
God  produces  it.  The  Spirit,  then,  in  that  section  is  rep¬ 
resented  as  doing  exactly  what  in  the  pregnant  words, 


Salvation 


147 


“faith  working  through  love,”  is  attributed  to  faith.  The 
apparent  contradiction  simply  leads  to  the  true  concep¬ 
tion  of  faith.  True  faith  does  not  do  anything.  When  it 
is  said  to  do  something  (as  when  our  Lord  said  that  it 
can  remove  mountains),  that  is  only  by  a  very  natural 
shortness  of  expression.  Faith  is  the  exact  opposite  of 
works ;  faith  does  not  give,  it  receives.  So  when  Paul 
says  that  we  do  something  by  faith,  that  is  just  another 
way  of  saying  that  of  ourselves  we  do  nothing ;  when  it  is 
said  that  faith  works  through  love  that  means  that 
through  faith  the  necessary  basis  of  all  Christian  work 
has  been  obtained  in  the  removal  of  guilt  and  the  birth  of 
the  new  man,  and  that  the  Spirit  of  God  has  been  received 
- — the  Spirit  who  works  with  and  through  the  Christian 
man  for  holy  living.  The  force  which  enters  the  Christian 
life  through  faith  and  works  itself  out  through  love  is  the 
power  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 

But  the  Christian  life  is  lived  not  only  by  faith;  it  is 
also  lived  in  hope.  The  Christian  is  in  the  midst  of  a  sore 
battle.  And  as  for  the  condition  of  the  world  at  large — 
nothing  but  the  coldest  heartlessness  could  be  satisfied 
with  that.  It  is  certainly  true  that  the  whole  creation 
groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain  together  until  now.  Even 
in  the  Christian  life  there  are  things  that  we  should  like  to 
see  removed ;  there  are  fears  within  as  well  as  fightings 
without ;  even  within  the  Christian  life  there  are  sad  evi¬ 
dences  of  sin.  But  according  to  the  hope  which  Christ  has 
given  us,  there  will  be  final  victory,  and  the  struggle  of 
this  world  will  be  followed  by  the  glories  of  heaven.  That 
hope  runs  all  through  the  Christian  life;  Christianity  is 
not  engrossed  by  this  transitory  world,  but  measures  all 
things  by  the  thought  of  eternity. 

But  at  this  point  an  objection  is  frequently  raised. 
The  “otherworldliness”  of  Christianity  is  objected  to  as 


148  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

a  form  of  selfishness.  The  Christian,  it  is  said,  does  what 
is  right  because  of  the  hope  of  heaven,  but  how  much 
nobler  is  the  man  who  because  of  duty  walks  boldly  into 
the  darkness  of  annihilation ! 

The  objection  would  have  some  weight  if  heaven  accord¬ 
ing  to  Christian  belief  were  mere  enjoyment.  But  as  a 
matter  of  fact  heaven  is  communion  with  God  and  with 
His  Christ.  It  can  be  said  reverently  that  the  Christian 
longs  for  heaven  not  only  for  his  own  sake,  but  also  for 
the  sake  of  God.  Our  present  love  is  so  cold,  our  present 
service  so  weak ;  and  we  would  one  day  love  and  serve  Him 
as  His  love  deserves.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  the  Chris¬ 
tian  is  dissatisfied  with  the  present  world,  but  it  is  a  holy 
dissatisfaction;  it  is  that  hunger  and  thirst  after  right¬ 
eousness  which  our  Saviour  blessed.  We  are  separated 
from  the  Saviour  now  by  the  veil  of  sense  and  by  the 
effects  of  sin,  and  it  is  not  selfish  to  long  to  see  Him  face 
to  face.  To  relinquish  such  longing  is  not  unselfishness, 
but  is  like  the  cold  heartlessness  of  a  man  who  could  part 
from  father  or  mother  or  wife  or  child  without  a  pang. 
It  is  not  selfish  to  long  for  the  One  whom  not  having  seen 
we  love. 

Such  is  the  Christian  life — it  is  a  life  of  conflict,  but  it 
is  also  a  life  of  hope.  It  views  this  world  under  the  aspect 
of  eternity ;  the  fashion  of  this  world  passeth  away,  and 
all  must  stand  before  the  judgment  seat  of  Christ. 

Very  different  is  the  “program”  of  the  modern  liberal 
Church.  In  that  program,  heaven  has  little  place,  and 
this  world  is  really  all  in  all.  The  rejection  of  the 
Christian  hope  is  not  always  definite  or  conscious ;  some¬ 
times  the  liberal  preacher  tries  to  maintain  a  belief  in  the 
immortality  of  the  soul.  But  the  real  basis  of  the  belief 
in  immortality  has  been  given  up  by  the  rejection  of  the 
New  Testament  account  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ. 


Salvation 


149 


And,  practically,  the  liberal  preacher  has  very  little  to 
say  about  the  other  world.  This  world  is  really  the  centre 
of  all  his  thoughts  ;  religion  itself,  and  even  God,  are  made 
merely  a  means  for  the  betterment  of  conditions  upon  this 
earth. 

Thus  religion  has  become  a  mere  function  of  the  com¬ 
munity  or  of  the  state.  So  it  is  looked  upon  by  the  men 
of  the  present  day.  Even  hard-headed  business  men  and 
politicians  have  become  convinced  that  religion  is  needed. 
But  it  is  thought  to  be  needed  merely  as  a  means  to  an 
end.  We  have  tried  to  get  along  without  religion,  it  is 
said,  but  the  experiment  was  a  failure,  and  now  religion 
must  be  called  in  to  help. 

Por  example,  there  is  the  problem  of  the  immigrants ; 
great  populations  have  found  a  place  in  our  country; 
they  do  not  speak  our  language  or  know  our  customs ; 
and  we  do  not  know  what  to  do  with  them.  We  have 
attacked  them  by  oppressive  legislation  or  proposals  of 
legislation,  but  such  measures  have  not  been  altogether 
effective.  Somehow  these  people  display  a  perverse  at¬ 
tachment  to  the  language  that  they  learned  at  their 
mother’s  knee.  It  may  be  strange  that  a  man  should  love 
the  language  that  he  learned  at  his  mother’s  knee,  but 
these  people  do  love  it,  and  we  are  perplexed  in  our  efforts 
to  produce  a  unified  American  people.  So  religion  is 
called  in  to  help ;  we  are  inclined  to  proceed  against  the 
immigrants  now  with  a  Bible  in  one  hand  and  a  club  in  the 
other  offering  them  the  blessings  of  liberty.  That  is  what 
is  sometimes  meant  by  “Christian  Americanization.” 

Another  puzzling  problem  is  the  problem  of  industrial 
relations.  Self-interest  has  here  been  appealed  to ;  em¬ 
ployers  and  employees  have  had  pointed  out  to  them  the 
plain  commercial  advantages  of  conciliation.  But  all  to 
no  purpose.  Class  clashes  still  against  class  in  the  de- 


150  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

structiveness  of  industrial  warfare.  And  sometimes  false 
doctrine  provides  a  basis  for  false  practice;  the  danger 
of  Bolshevism  is  ever  in  the  air.  Here  again  repressive 
measures  have  been  tried  without  avail;  the  freedom  of 
speech  and  of  the  press  has  been  radically  curtailed. 
But  repressive  legislation  seems  unable  to  check  the  march 
of  ideas.  Perhaps,  therefore,  in  these  matters  also,  reli¬ 
gion  must  be  invoked. 

Still  another  problem  faces  the  modern  world — the 
problem  of  international  peace.  This  problem  also  seemed 
at  one  time  nearly  solved;  self-interest  seemed  likely  to 
be  sufficient ;  there  were  many  who  supposed  that  the 
bankers  would  prevent  another  European  war.  But  all 
such  hopes  were  cruelly  shattered  in  1914,  and  there  is 
not  a  whit  of  evidence  that  they  are  better  founded  now 
than  they  were  then.  Here  again,  therefore,  self-interest 
is  insufficient ;  and  religion  must  be  called  in  to  help. 

Such  considerations  have  led  to  a  renewed  public  inter¬ 
est  in  the  subject  of  religion;  religion  is  discovered  after 
all  to  be  a  useful  thing.  But  the  trouble  is  that  in  being 
utilized  religion  is  also  being  degraded  and  destroyed. 
Religion  is  being  regarded  more  and  more  as  a  mere  means 
to  a  higher  end.1  The  change  can  be  detected  with  especial 
clearness  in  the  way  in  which  missionaries  commend  their 
cause.  Fifty  years  ago,  missionaries  made  their  appeal 
in  the  light  of  eternity.  “Millions  of  men,”  they  were 
accustomed  to  say,  “are  going  down  to  eternal  destruc¬ 
tion;  Jesus  is  a  Saviour  sufficient  for  all;  send  us  out 
therefore  with  the  message  of  salvation  while  yet  there  is 

1  For  a  penetrating  criticism  of  this  tendency,  especially  as  it 
would  result  in  the  control  of  religious  education  by  the  community, 
and  for  an  eloquent  advocacy  of  the  opposite  view,  which  makes 
Christianity  an  end  in  itself,  see  Harold  McA.  Robinson,  “Democracy 
and  Christianity,  in  The  Christian  Educator ,  Vol.  V,  No.  1,  for 
October,  1920,  pp.  3-5. 


Salvation 


151 


time.”  Some  missionaries,  thank  God,  still  speak  in  that 
way.  But  very  many  missionaries  make  quite  a  different 
appeal.  “We  are  missionaries  to  India,”  they  say.  “Now 
India  is  in  ferment ;  Bolshevism  is  creeping  in ;  send  us 
out  to  India  that  the  menace  may  be  checked.”  Or  else 
they  say:  “We  are  missionaries  to  Japan;  Japan  will  be 
dominated  by  militarism  unless  the  principles  of  Jesus 
have  sway;  send  us  out  therefore  to  prevent  the  calamity 
of  war.” 

The  same  great  change  appears  in  community  life.  A 
new  community,  let  us  say,  has  been  formed.  It  possesses 
many  things  that  naturally  belong  to  a  well-ordered  com¬ 
munity  ;  it  has  a  drug-store,  and  a  country  club,  and  a 
school.  “But  there  is  one  thing,”  its  inhabitants  say  to 
themselves,  “that  is  still  lacking ;  we  have  no  church.  But 
a  church  is  a  recognized  and  necessary  part  of  every 
healthy  community.  We  must  therefore  have  a  church.” 
And  so  an  expert  in  community  church-building  is  sum¬ 
moned  to  take  the  necessary  steps.  The  persons  who 
speak  in  this  way  usually  have  little  interest  in  religion 
for  its  own  sake;  it  has  never  occurred  to  them  to  enter 
into  the  secret  place  of  communion  with  the  holy  God. 
But  religion  is  thought  to  be  necessary  for  a  healthy  com¬ 
munity  ;  and  therefore  for  the  sake  of  the  community  they 
are  willing  to  have  a  church. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  this  attitude  toward  reli¬ 
gion,  it  is  perfectly  plain  that  the  Christian  religion  can¬ 
not  be  treated  in  any  such  way.  The  moment  it  is  so 
treated  it  ceases  to  be  Christian.  For  if  one  thing  is  plain 
it  is  that  Christianity  refuses  to  be  regarded  as  a  mere 
means  to  a  higher  end.  Our  Lord  made  that  perfectly  clear 
when  He  said :  “If  any  man  come  to  me,  and  hate  not  his 
father  and  mother  ...  he  cannot  be  my  disciple”  (Luke 
xiv.  26).  Whatever  else  those  stupendous  words  may 


152  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

mean,  they  certainly  mean  that  the  relationship  to  Christ 
takes  precedence  of  all  other  relationships,  even  the  holiest 
of  relationships  like  those  that  exist  between  husband  and 
wife  and  parent  and  child.  Those  other  relationships 
exist  for  the  sake  of  Christianity  and  not  Christianity  for 
the  sake  of  them.  Christianity  will  indeed  accomplish 
many  useful  things  in  this  world,  but  if  it  is  accepted  in 
order  to  accomplish  those  useful  things  it  is  not  Christian¬ 
ity.  Christianity  will  combat  Bolshevism;  but  if  it  is 
accepted  in  order  to  combat  Bolshevism,  it  is  not  Chris¬ 
tianity:  Christianity  will  produce  a  unified  nation,  in  a 
slow  but  satisfactory  way;  but  if  it  is  accepted  in  order 
to  produce  a  unified  nation,  it  is  not  Christianity :  Chris¬ 
tianity  will  produce  a  healthy  community;  but  if  it  is 
accepted  in  order  to  produce  a  healthy  community,  it  is 
not  Christianity:  Christianity  will  promote  international 
peace;  but  if  it  is  accepted  in  order  to  promote  interna¬ 
tional  peace,  it  is  not  Christianity.  Our  Lord  said:  “Seek 
ye  first  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness,  and 
all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you.”  But  if  you 
seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness  in 
order  that  all  those  other  things  may  be  added  unto  you, 
you  will  miss  both  those  other  things  and  the  Kingdom  of 
God  as  well. 

But  if  Christianity  be  directed  toward  another  world,  if 
it  be  a  way  by  which  individuals  can  escape  from  the 
present  evil  age  to  some  higher  country,  what  becomes  of 
“the  social  gospel”?  At  this  point  is  detected  one  of  the 
most  obvious  lines  of  cleavage  between  Christianity  and 
the  liberal  Church.  The  older  evangelism,  says  the  mod¬ 
ern  liberal  preacher,  sought  to  rescue  individuals,  while 
the  newer  evangelism  seeks  to  transform  the  whole  organ¬ 
ism  of  society:  the  older  evangelism  was  individual;  the 
newer  evangelism  is  social. 


Salvation 


153 


This  formulation  of  the  issue  is  not  entirely  correct, 
but  it  contains  an  element  of  truth.  It  is  true  that  his¬ 
toric  Christianity  is  in  conflict  at  many  points  with  the 
collectivism  of  the  present  day ;  it  does  emphasize,  against 
the  claims  of  society,  the  worth  of  the  individual  soul.  It 
provides  for  the  individual  a  refuge  from  all  the  fluctuat¬ 
ing  currents  of  human  opinion,  a  secret  place  of  medita¬ 
tion  where  a  man  can  come  alone  into  the  presence  of  God. 
It  does  give  a  man  courage  to  stand,  if  need  be,  against 
the  world ;  it  resolutely  refuses  to  make  of  the  individual 
a  mere  means  to  an  end,  a  mere  element  in  the  composition 
of  society.  It  rejects  altogether  any  means  of  salvation 
which  deals  with  men  in  a  mass ;  it  brings  the  individual 
face  to  face  with  his  God.  In  that  sense,  it  is  true  that 
Christianity  is  individualistic  and  not  social. 

But  though  Christianity  is  individualistic,  it  is  not  only 
individualistic.  It  provides  fully  for  the  social  needs  of 
man. 

In  the  first  place,  even  the  communion  of  the  individual 
man  with  God  is  not  really  individualistic,  but  social.  A 
man  is  not  isolated  when  he  is  in  communion  with  God ;  he 
can  be  regarded  as  isolated  only  by  one  who  has  forgotten 
the  real  existence  of  the  supreme  Person.  Here  again,  as 
at  many  other  places,  the  line  of  cleavage  between  liberal¬ 
ism  and  Christianity  really  reduces  to  a  profound  differ¬ 
ence  in  the  conception  of  God.  Christianity  is  earnestly 
theistic ;  liberalism  is  at  best  but  half-heartedly  so.  If  a 
man  once  comes  to  believe  in  a  personal  God,  then  the  wor¬ 
ship  of  Him  will  not  be  regarded  as  selfish  isolation,  but  as 
the  chief  end  of  man.  That  does  not  mean  that  on  the 
Christian  view  the  worship  of  God  is  ever  to  be  carried  o$ 
to  the  neglect  of  service  rendered  to  one’s  fellow-men — “he 
that  loveth  not  his  brother  whom  he  hath  seen,  is  not  able 
to  love  God  whom  he  hath  not  seen” — but  it  does  meaft 


154  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

that  the  worship  of  God  has  a  value  of  its  own.  Very 
different  is  the  prevailing  doctrine  of  modern  liberalism. 
According  to  Christian  belief,  man  exists  for  the  sake  of 
God;  according  to  the  liberal  Church,  in  practice  if  not 
in  theory,  God  exists  for  the  sake  of  man. 

But  the  social  element  in  Christianity  is  found  not  only 
in  communion  between  man  and  God,  but  also  in  com¬ 
munion  between  man  and  man.  Such  communion  appears 
even  in  institutions  which  are  not  specifically  Christian. 

The  most  important  of  such  institutions,  according  to 
Christian  teaching,  is  the  family.  And  that  institution  is 
being  pushed  more  and  more  into  the  background.  It  is 
being  pushed  into  the  background  by  undue  encroach¬ 
ments  of  the  community  and  of  the  state.  Modern  life  is 
tending  more  and  more  toward  the  contraction  of  the 
sphere  of  parental  control  and  parental  influence.  The 
choice  of  schools  is  being  placed  under  the  power  of  the 
state;  the  “community”  is  seizing  hold  of  recreation  and 
of  social  activities.  It  may  be  a  question  how  far  these 
community  activities  are  responsible  for  the  modern 
breakdown  of  the  home;  very  possibly  they  are  only  try¬ 
ing  to  fill  a  void  which  even  apart  from  them  had  already 
appeared.  But  the  result  at  any  rate  is  plain — the  lives 
of  children  are  no  longer  surrounded  by  the  loving  atmos¬ 
phere  of  the  Christian  home,  but  by  the  utilitarianism  of 
the  state.  A  revival  of  the  Christian  religion  would  un¬ 
questionably  bring  a  reversal  of  the  process ;  the  family, 
as  over  against  all  other  social  institutions,  would  come  to 
its  rights  again. 

But  the  state,  even  when  reduced  to  its  proper  limits, 
has  a  large  place  in  human  life,  and  in  the  possession  of 
that  place  it  is  supported  by  Christianity.  The  support, 
moreover,  is  independent  of  the  Christian  or  non-Christian 
character  of  the  state ;  it  was  in  the  Roman  Empire  under 


Salvation 


155 


Nero  that  Paul  said,  “The  powers  that  be  are  ordained 
of  God.”  Christianity  assumes  no  negative  attitude, 
therefore,  toward  the  state,  but  recognizes,  under  existing 
conditions,  the  necessity  of  government. 

The  case  is  similar  with  respect  to  those  broad  aspects 
of  human  life  which  are  associated  with  industrialism. 
The  “otherworldliness”  of  Christianity  involves  no  with¬ 
drawal  from  the  battle  of  this  world ;  our  Lord  Himself, 
with  His  stupendous  mission,  lived  in  the  midst  of  life’s 
throng  and  press.  Plainly,  then,  the  Christian  man  may 
not  simplify  his  problem  by  withdrawing  from  the  business 
of  the  world,  but  must  learn  to  apply  the  principles  of 
Jesus  even  to  the  complex  problems  of  modern  industrial 
life.  At  this  point  Christian  teaching  is  in  full  accord 
with  the  modern  liberal  Church ;  the  evangelical  Christian 
is  not  true  to  his  profession  if  he  leaves  his  Christianity 
behind  him  on  Monday  morning.  On  the  contrary,  the 
whole  of  life,  including  business  and  all  of  social  relations, 
must  be  made  obedient  to  the  law  of  love.  The  Christian 
man  certainly  should  display  no  lack  of  interest  in 
“applied  Christianity.” 

Only — and  here  emerges  the  enormous  difference  of 
opinion — the  Christian  man  believes  that  there  can  be  no 
applied  Christianity  unless  there  be  “a  Christianity  to 
apply.”  1  That  is  where  the  Christian  man  differs  from 
the  modern  liberal.  The  liberal  believes  that  applied 
Christianity  is  all  there  is  of  Christianity,  Christianity 
being  merely  a  way  of  life ;  the  Christian  man  believes 
that  applied  Christianity  is  the  result  of  an  initial  act  of 
God.  Thus  there  is  an  enormous  difference  between  the 
modern  liberal  and  the  Christian  man  with  reference  to 

1  Francis  Shunk  Downs,  “Christianity  and  Today,”  in  Princeton 
Theological  Review,  xx,  1922,  p.  287.  See  also  the  whole  article,  ibid., 
pp.  287-304. 


156  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

human  institutions  like  the  community  and  the  state,  and 
with  reference  to  human  efforts  at  applying  the  Golden 
Rule  in  industrial  relationships.  The  modern  liberal  is 
optimistic  with  reference  to  these  institutions ;  the  Chris¬ 
tian  man  is  pessimistic  unless  the  institutions  be  manned 
by  Christian  men.  The  modern  liberal  believes  that 
human  nature  as  at  present  constituted  can  be  molded  by 
the  principles  of  Jesus ;  the  Christian  man  believes  that 
evil  can  only  be  held  in  check  and  not  destroyed  by  human 
institutions,  and  that  there  must  be  a  transformation  of 
the  human  materials  before  any  new  building  can  be  pro¬ 
duced.  This  difference  is  not  a  mere  difference  in  theory, 
but  makes  itself  felt  everywhere  in  the  practical  realm.  It 
is  particularly  evident  on  the  mission  field.  The  mission¬ 
ary  of  liberalism  seeks  to  spread  the  blessings  of  Christian 
civilization  (whatever  that  may  be),  and  is  not  particu¬ 
larly  interested  in  leading  individuals  to  relinquish  their 
pagan  beliefs.  The  Christian  missionary,  on  the  other 
hand,  regards  satisfaction  with  a  mere  influence  of  Chris¬ 
tian  civilization  as  a  hindrance  rather  than  a  help ;  his 
chief  business,  he  believes,  is  the  saving  of  souls,  and  souls 
are  saved  not  by  the  mere  ethical  principles  of  Jesus  but 
by  His  redemptive  work.  The  Christian  missionary,  in 
other  words,  and  the  Christian  worker  at  home  as  well  as 
abroad,  unlike  the  apostle  of  liberalism,  says  to  all  men 
everywhere:  “Human  goodness  will  avail  nothing  for  lost 
souls ;  ye  must  be  born  again.” 


CHAPTER  VII 


THE  CHURCH 

It  has  just  been  observed  that  Christianity,  as  well  as 
liberalism,  is  interested  in  social  institutions.  But  the 
most  important  institution  has  not  yet  been  mentioned — • 
it  is  the  institution  of  the  Church.  When,  according  to 
Christian  belief,  lost  souls  are  saved,  the  saved  ones 
become  united  in  the  Christian  Church.  It  is  only  by  a 
baseless  caricature  that  Christian  missionaries  are  repre¬ 
sented  as  though  they  had  no  interest  in  education  or  in 
the  maintenance  of  a  social  life  in  this  world;  it  is  not 
true  that  they  are  interested  only  in  saving  individual 
souls  and  when  the  souls  are  saved  leave  them  to  their  own 
devices.  On  the  contrary  true  Christians  must  every¬ 
where  be  united  in  the  brotherhood  of  the  Christian 
Church. 

Very  different  is  this  Christian  conception  of  brother¬ 
hood  from  the  liberal  doctrine  of  the  “brotherhood  of 
man.”  The  modern  liberal  doctrine  is  that  all  men  every¬ 
where,  no  matter  what  their  race  or  creed,  are  brothers. 
There  is  a  sense  in  which  this  doctrine  can  be  accepted  by 
the  Christian.  The  relation  in  which  all  men  stand  to  one 
another  is  analogous  in  some  important  respects  to  the 
relation  of  brotherhood.  All  men  have  the  same  Creator 
and  the  same  nature.  The  Christian  man  can  accept  all 
that  the  modern  liberal  means  by  the  brotherhood  of  man. 
But  the  Christian  knows  also  of  a  relationship  far  more 
intimate  than  that  general  relationship  of  man  to  man, 

157 


158  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

and  it  is  for  this  more  intimate  relationship  that  he 
reserves  the  term  “brother.”  The  true  brotherhood, 
according  to  Christian  teaching,  is  the  brotherhood  of  the 
redeemed. 

There  is  nothing  narrow  about  such  teaching;  for  the 
Christian  brotherhood  is  open  without  distinction  to  all ; 
and  the  Christian  man  seeks  to  bring  all  men  in.  Chris¬ 
tian  service,  it  is  true,  is  not  limited  to  the  household  of 
faith;  all  men,  whether  Christians  or  not,  are  our  neigh¬ 
bors  if  they  be  in  need.  But  if  we  really  love  our  fellow- 
men  we  shall  never  be  content  with  binding  up  their 
wounds  or  pouring  on  oil  and  wine  or  rendering  them  any 
such  lesser  service.  We  shall  indeed  do  such  things  for 
them.  But  the  main  business  of  our  lives  will  be  to  bring 
them  to  the  Saviour  of  their  souls. 

It  is  upon  this  brotherhood  of  twice-born  sinners,  this 
brotherhood  of  the  redeemed,  that  the  Christian  founds 
the  hope  of  society.  He  finds  no  solid  hope  in  the  im¬ 
provement  of  earthly  conditions,  or  the  molding  of  human 
institutions  under  the  influence  of  the  Golden  Rule.  These 
things  indeed  are  to  be  welcomed.  They  may  so  palliate 
the  symptoms  of  sin  that  there  may  be  time  to  apply  the 
true  remedy;  they  may  serve  to  produce  conditions  upon 
the  earth  favorable  to  the  propagation  of  the  gospel  mes¬ 
sage;  they  are  even  valuable  for  their  own  sake.  But  in 
themselves  their  value,  to  the  Christian,  is  certainly  small. 
A  solid  building  cannot  be  constructed  when  all  the  mate¬ 
rials  are  faulty ;  a  blessed  society  cannot  be  formed  out 
of  men  who  are  still  under  the  curse  of  sin.  Human  insti¬ 
tutions  are  really  to  be  molded,  not  by  Christian  princi¬ 
ples  accepted  by  the  unsaved,  but  by  Christian  men ;  the 
true  transformation  of  society  will  come  by  the  influence 
of  those  who  have  themselves  been  redeemed. 

in  the  way  in 


Thus  Christianity  differs  from  liberalism 


The  Church 


159 


which  the  transformation  of  society  is  conceived.  But 
according  to  Christian  belief,  as  well  as  according  to  lib¬ 
eralism,  there  is  really  to  be  a  transformation  of  society ; 
it  is  not  true  that  the  Christian  evangelist  is  interested  in 
the  salvation  of  individuals  without  being  interested  in  the 
salvation  of  the  race.  And  even  before  the  salvation  of  all 
society  has  been  achieved,  there  is  already  a  society  of 
those  who  have  been  saved.  That  society  is  the  Church. 
The  Church  is  the  highest  Christian  answer  to  the  social 
needs  of  man. 

And  the  Church  invisible,  the  true  company  of  the  re¬ 
deemed,  finds  expression  in  the  companies  of  Christians 
who  constitute  the  visible  Church  to-day.  But  what  is  the 
trouble  with  the  visible  Church?  What  is  the  reason  for 
its  obvious  weakness  ?  There  are  perhaps  many  causes  of 
weakness.  But  one  cause  is  perfectly  plain — the  Church 
of  to-day  has  been  unfaithful  to  her  Lord  by  admitting 
great  companies  of  non-Christian  persons,  not  only  into 
her  membership,  but  into  her  teaching  agencies.  It  is 
indeed  inevitable  that  some  persons  who  are  not  truly 
Christian  shall  find  their  way  into  the  visible  Church; 
fallible  men  cannot  discern  the  heart,  and  many  a  profes¬ 
sion  of  faith  which  seems  to  be  genuine  may  really  be  false. 
But  it  is  not  this  kind  of  error  to  which  we  now  refer. 
What  is  now  meant  is  not  the  admission  of  individuals 
whose  confessions  of  faith  may  not  be  sincere,  but  the 
admission  of  great  companies  of  persons  who  have  never 
made  any  really  credible  confession  of  faith  at  all  and 
whose  entire  attitude  toward  the  gospel  is  the  very  reverse 
of  the  Christian  attitude.  Such  persons,  moreover,  have 
been  admitted  not  merely  to  the  membership,  but  to  the 
ministry  of  the  Church,  and  to  an  increasing  extent  have 
been  allowed  to  dominate  its  councils  and  determine  its 
teaching.  The  greatest  menace  to  the  Christian  Church 


160  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

to-day  comes  not  from  the  enemies  outside,  but  from  the 
enemies  within ;  it  comes  from  the  presence  within  the 
Church  of  a  type  of  faith  and  practice  that  is  anti-Chris¬ 
tian  to  the  core. 

We  are  not  dealing  here  with  delicate  personal  ques¬ 
tions  ;  we  are  not  presuming  to  say  whether  such  and 
such  an  individual  man  is  a  Christian  or  not.  God  only 
can  decide  such  questions ;  no  man  can  say  with  assurance 
whether  the  attitude  of  certain  individual  “liberals” 
toward  Christ  is  saving  faith  or  not.  But  one  thing  is 
perfectly  plain — whether  or  no  liberals  are  Christians,  it 
is  at  any  rate  perfectly  clear  that  liberalism  is  not 
Christianity.  And  that  being  the  case,  it  is  highly  unde¬ 
sirable  that  liberalism  and  Christianity  should  continue  to 
be  propagated  within  the  bounds  of  the  same  organiza¬ 
tion.  A  separation  between  the  two  parties  in  the  Church 
is  the  crying  need  of  the  hour. 

Many  indeed  are  seeking  to  avoid  the  separation.  Why, 
they  say,  may  not  brethren  dwell  together  in  unity?  The 
Church,  we  are  told,  has  room  both  for  liberals  and  for 
conservatives.  The  conservatives  may  be  allowed  to  re¬ 
main  if  they  will  keep  trifling  matters  in  the  background 
and  attend  chiefly  to  “the  weightier  matters  of  the  law.” 
And  among  the  things  thus  designated  as  “trifling”  is 
found  the  Cross  of  Christ,  as  a  really  vicarious  atonement 
of  sin. 

Such  obscuration  of  the  issue  attests  a  really  astonish¬ 
ing  narrowness  on  the  part  of  the  liberal  preacher.  Nar¬ 
rowness  does  not  consist  in  definite  devotion  to  certain 
convictions  or  in  definite  rejection  of  others.  But  the 
narrow  man  is  the  man  who  rejects  the  other  man’s  con¬ 
victions  without  first  endeavoring  to  understand  them,  the 
man  who  makes  no  effort  to  look  at  things  from  the  other 
man’s  point  of  view.  For  example,  it  is  not  narrow  to 


The  Church 


161 


reject  the  Roman  Catholic  doctrine  that  there  is  no  sal¬ 
vation  outside  the  Church.  It  is  not  narrow  to  try  to 
convince  Roman  Catholics  that  that  doctrine  is  wrong. 
But  it  would  be  very  narrow  to  say  to  a  Roman  Catholic : 
“You  may  go  on  holding  your  doctrine  about  the  Church 
and  I  shall  hold  mine,  but  let  us  unite  in  our  Christian 
work,  since  despite  such  trifling  differences  we  are  agreed 
about  the  matters  that  concern  the  welfare  of  the  soul.” 
For  of  course  such  an  utterance  would  simply  beg  the 
question ;  the  Roman  Catholic  could  not  possibly  both 
hold  his  doctrine  of  the  Church  and  at  the  same  time 
reject  it,  as  would  be  required  by  the  program  of  Church 
unity  just  suggested.  A  Protestant  who  would  speak  in 
that  way  would  be  narrow,  because  quite  independent  of 
the  question  whether  he  or  the  Roman  Catholic  is  right 
about  the  Church  he  would  show  plainly  that  he  had  not 
made  the  slightest  effort  to  understand  the  Roman 
Catholic  point  of  view. 

The  case  is  similar  with  the  liberal  program  for  unity 
in  the  Church.  It  could  never  be  advocated  by  anyone 
who  had  made  the  slightest  effort  to  understand  the  point 
of  view  of  his  opponent  in  the  controversy.  The  liberal 
preacher  says  to  the  conservative  party  in  the  Church: 
“Let  us  unite  in  the  same  congregation,  since  of  course 
doctrinal  differences  are  trifles.”  But  it  is  the  very 
essence  of  “conservatism”  in  the  Church  to  regard  doc¬ 
trinal  differences  as  no  trifles  but  as  the  matters  of 
supreme  moment.  A  man  cannot  possibly  be  an  “evangeli¬ 
cal”  or  a  “conservative”  (or,  as  he  himself  would  say, 
simply  a  Christian)  and  regard  the  Cross  of  Christ  as  a 
trifle.  To  suppose  that  he  can  is  the  extreme  of  narrow¬ 
ness.  It  is  not  necessarily  “narrow”  to  reject  the  vicari¬ 
ous  sacrifice  of  our  Lord  as  the  sole  means  of  salvation. 
It  may  be  very  wrong  (and  we  believe  that  it  is),  but  it  is 


162  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

not  necessarily  narrow.  But  to  suppose  that  a  man  can 
hold  to  the  vicarious  sacrifice  of  Christ  and  at  the  same 
time  belittle  that  doctrine,  to  suppose  that  a  man  can 
believe  that  the  eternal  Son  of  God  really  bore  the  guilt  of 
men’s  sins  on  the  Cross  and  at  the  same  time  regard  that 
belief  as  a  “trifle”  without  bearing  upon  the  welfare  of 
men’s  souls — that  is  very  narrow  and  very  absurd.  We 
shall  really  get  nowhere  in  this  controversy  unless  we 
make  a  sincere  effort  to  understand  the  other  man’s  point 
of  view. 

But  for  another  reason  also  the  effort  to  sink  doctrinal 
differences  and  unite  the  Church  on  a  program  of  Chris¬ 
tian  service  is  unsatisfactory.  It  is  unsatisfactory 
because,  in  its  usual  contemporary  form,  it  is  dishonest. 
Whatever  may  be  thought  of  Christian  doctrine,  it  can 
hardly  be  denied  that  honesty  is  one  of  the  “weightier 
matters  of  the  law.”  Yet  honesty  is  being  relinquished 
in  wholesale  fashion  by  the  liberal  party  in  many  eccle¬ 
siastical  bodies  to-day. 

To  recognize  that  fact  one  does  not  need  to  take  sides 
at  all  with  regard  to  the  doctrinal  or  historical  questions. 
Suppose  it  be  true  that  devotion  to  a  creed  is  a  sign  of 
narrowness  or  intolerance,  suppose  the  Church  ought  to 
be  founded  upon  devotion  to  the  ideal  of  Jesus  or  upon 
the  desire  to  put  His  spirit  into  operation  in  the  world, 
and  not  at  all  upon  a  confession  of  faith  with  regard  to 
His  redeeming  work.  Even  if  all  this  were  true,  even  if  a 
creedal  Church  were  an  undesirable  thing,  it  would  still 
remain  true  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  many  (indeed  in 
spirit  really  all)  evangelical  churches  are  creedal  churches, 
and  that  if  a  man  does  not  accept  their  creed  he  has  no 
right  to  a  place  in  their  teaching  ministry.  The  creedal 
character  of  the  churches  is  differently  expressed  in  the 
different  evangelical  bodies,  but  the  example  of  the  Pres- 


The  Church 


163 


byterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of  America  may 
perhaps  serve  to  illustrate  what  is  meant.  It  is  required 
of  all  officers  in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  including  the 
ministers,  that  at  their  ordination  they  make  answer 
“plainly”  to  a  series  of  questions  which  begins  with  the 
two  following: 

“Do  you  believe  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments  to  be  the  Word  of  God,  the  only  infallible 
rule  of  faith  and  practice?” 

“Do  you  sincerely  receive  and  adopt  the  Confession  of 
Faith  of  this  Church,  as  containing  the  system  of  doctrine 
taught  in  the  Holy  Scriptures?” 

If  these  “constitutional  questions”  do  not  fix  clearly  the 
creedal  basis  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  it  is  difficult  to 
see  how  any  human  language  could  possibly  do  so.  Yet 
immediately  after  making  such  a  solemn  declaration,  im¬ 
mediately  after  declaring  that  the  Westminster  Confession 
contains  the  system  of  doctrine  taught  in  infallible  Scrip¬ 
tures,  many  ministers  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  will 
proceed  to  decry  that  same  Confession  and  that  doctrine 
of  the  infallibility  of  Scripture  to  which  they  have  just 
solemnly  subscribed ! 

We  are  not  now  speaking  of  the  membership  of  the 
Church,  but  of  the  ministry,  and  we  are  not  speaking  of 
the  man  who  is  troubled  by  grave  doubts  and  wonders 
whether  with  his  doubts  he  can  honestly  continue  his  mem¬ 
bership  in  the  Church.  For  great  hosts  of  such  troubled 
souls  the  Church  offers  bountifully  its  fellowship  and  its 
aid ;  it  would  be  a  crime  to  cast  them  out.  There  are 
many  men  of  little  faith  in  our  troublous  times.  It  is  not 
of  them  that  we  speak.  God  grant  that  they  may  obtain 
comfort  and  help  through  the  ministrations  of  the 
Church ! 

But  we  are  speaking  of  men  very  different  from  these 


164  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

men  of  little  faith — from  these  men  who  are  troubled  by 
doubts  and  are  seeking  earnestly  for  the  truth.  The  men 
whom  we  mean  are  seeking  not  membership  in  the  Church, 
but  a  place  in  the  ministry,  and  they  desire  not  to  learn 
but  to  teach.  They  are  not  men  who  say,  “I  believe,  help 
mine  unbelief,”  but  men  who  are  proud  in  the  possession 
of  the  knowledge  of  this  world,  and  seek  a  place  in  the 
ministry  that  they  may  teach  what  is  directly  contrary  to 
the  Confession  of  Faith  to  which  they  subscribe.  For  that 
course  of  action  various  excuses  are  made — the  growth  of 
custom  by  which  the  constitutional  questions  are  supposed 
to  have  become  a  dead  letter,  various  mental  reservations, 
various  “interpretations”  of  the  declaration  (which  of 
course  mean  a  complete  reversal  of  the  meaning).  But  no 
such  excuses  can  change  the  essential  fact.  Whether  it 
be  desirable  or  not,  the  ordination  declaration  is  part  of 
the  constitution  of  the  Church.  If  a  man  can  stand  on 
that  platform  he  may  be  an  officer  in  the  Presbyterian 
Church ;  if  he  cannot  stand  on  it  he  has  no  right  to  be  an 
officer  in  the  Presbyterian  Church.  And  the  case  is  no 
doubt  essentially  similar  in  other  evangelical  Churches. 
Whether  we  like  it  or  not,  these  Churches  are  founded 
upon  a  creed ;  they  are  organized  for  the  propagation  of 
a  message.  If  a  man  desires  to  combat  that  message 
instead  of  propagating  it,  he  has  no  right,  no  matter  how 
false  the  message  may  be,  to  gain  a  vantage  ground  for 
combating  it  by  making  a  declaration  of  his  faith  which 
— be  it  plainly  spoken — is  not  true. 

But  if  such  a  course  of  action  is  wrong,  another  course 
of  action  is  perfectly  open  to  the  man  who  desires  to 
propagate  “liberal  Christianity.”  Finding  the  existing 
“evangelical”  churches  to  be  bound  up  to  a  creed  which 
he  does  not  accept,  he  may  either  unite  himself  with  some 
other  existing  body  or  else  found  a  new  body  to  suit  him- 


The  Church 


165 


self.  There  are  of  course  certain  obvious  disadvantages 
in  such  a  course — the  abandonment  of  church  buildings  to 
which  one  is  attached,  the  break  in  family  traditions,  the 
injury  to  sentiment  of  various  kinds.  But  there  is  one 
supreme  advantage  which  far  overbalances  all  such  dis¬ 
advantages.  It  is  the  advantage  of  honesty.  The  path 
of  honesty  in  such  matters  may  be  rough  and  thorny,  but 
it  can  be  trod.  And  it  has  already  been  trod — for  ex¬ 
ample,  by  the  Unitarian  Church.  The  Unitarian  Church 
is  frankly  and  honestly  just  the  kind  of  church  that  the 
liberal  preacher  desires — namely,  a  church  without  an 
authoritative  Bible,  without  doctrinal  requirements,  and 
without  a  creed. 

Honesty,  despite  all  that  can  be  said  and  done,  is  not  a 
trifle,  but  one  of  the  weightier  matters  of  the  law.  Cer¬ 
tainly  it  has  a  value  of  its  own,  a  value  quite  independent 
of  consequences.  But  the  consequences  of  honesty  would 
in  the  case  now  under  discussion  not  be  unsatisfactory; 
here  as  elsewhere  honesty  would  probably  prove  to  be  the 
best  policy.  By  withdrawing  from  the  confessional 
churches — those  churches  that  are  founded  upon  a  creed 
derived  from  Scripture — the  liberal  preacher  would  indeed 
sacrifice  the  opportunity,  almost  within  his  grasp,  of  so 
obtaining  control  of  those  confessional  churches  as  to 
change  their  fundamental  character.  The  sacrifice  of 
that  opportunity  would  mean  that  the  hope  of  turning  the 
resources  of  the  evangelical  churches  into  the  propagation 
of  liberalism  would  be  gone.  But  liberalism  would  cer¬ 
tainly  not  suffer  in  the  end.  There  would  at  least  be  no 
more  need  of  using  equivocal  language,  no  more  need  of 
avoiding  offence.  The  liberal  preacher  would  obtain  the 
full  personal  respect  even  of  his  opponents,  and  the  whole 
discussion  would  be  placed  on  higher  ground.  All  would 
be  perfectly  straightforward  and  above-board.  And  if 


166  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

liberalism  is  true,  the  mere  loss  of  physical  resources 
would  not  prevent  it  from  making  its  way. 

At  this  point  a  question  may  arise.  If  there  ought  to 
be  a  separation  between  the  liberals  and  the  conservatives, 
in  the  Church,  why  should  not  the  conservatives  be  thq 
ones  to  withdraw?  Certainly  it  may  come  to  that.  If  the 
liberal  party  really  obtains  full  control  of  the  councils  of 
the  Church,  then  no  evangelical  Christian  can  continue  to 
support  the  Church’s  work.  If  a  man  believes  that  salva¬ 
tion  from  sin  comes  only  through  the  atoning  death  of 
Jesus,  then  he  cannot  honestly  support  by  his  gifts  and 
by  his  presence  a  propaganda  which  is  intended  to  pro¬ 
duce  an  exactly  opposite  impression.  To  do  so  would 
mean  the  most  terrible  bloodguiltiness  which  it  is  possible 
to  conceive.  If  the  liberal  party,  therefore,  really  obtains 
control  of  the  Church,  evangelical  Christians  must  be 
prepared  to  withdraw  no  matter  what  it  costs.  Our  Lord 
has  died  for  us,  and  surely  we  must  not  deny  Him  for 
favor  of  men.  But  up  to  the  present  time  such  a  situation 
has  not  yet  appeared ;  the  creedal  basis  still  stands  firm  in 
the  constitutions  of  evangelical  churches.  And  there  is  a 
very  real  reason  why  it  is  not  the  “conservatives”  who 
ought  to  withdraw.  The  reason  is  found  in  the  trust 
which  the  churches  hold.  That  trust  includes  trust  funds 
of  the  most  definite  kind.  And  contrary  to  what  seems  to 
be  the  prevailing  opinion,  we  venture  to  regard  a  trust  as 
a  sacred  thing.  The  funds  of  the  evangelical  churches  are 
held  under  a  very  definite  trust ;  they  are  committed  to 
the  various  bodies  for  the  propagation  of  the  gospel  as 
set  forth  in  the  Bible  and  in  the  confessions  of  faith.  To 
devote  them  to  any  other  purpose,  even  though  that  other 
purpose  should  be  in  itself  far  more  desirable,  would  be  a 
violation  of  trust. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  present  situation  is  anom- 


The  Church 


167 


alous.  Funds  dedicated  to  the  propagation  of  the  gospel 
by  godly  men  and  women  of  previous  generations  or  given 
by  thoroughly  evangelical  congregations  to-day  are  in 
nearly  all  the  churches  being  used  partly  in  the  propaga¬ 
tion  of  what  is  diametrically  opposed  to  the  evangelical 
faith.  Certainly  that  situation  ought  not  to  continue; 
it  is  an  offence  to  every  thoughtfully  honest  man  whether 
he  be  Christian  or  not.  But  in  remaining  in  the  existing 
churches  the  conservatives  are  in  a  fundamentally  differ¬ 
ent  position  from  the  liberals ;  for  the  conservatives  are 
in  agreement  with  the  plain  constitutions  of  the  churches, 
while  the  liberal  party  can  maintain  itself  only  by  an 
equivocal  subscription  to  declarations  which  it  does  not 
really  believe. 

But  how  shall  so  anomalous  a  situation  be  brought  to 
an  end?  The  best  way  would  undoubtedly  be  the  volun¬ 
tary  withdrawal  of  the  liberal  ministers  from  those  con¬ 
fessional  churches  whose  confessions  they  do  not,  in  the 
plain  historical  sense,  accept.  And  we  have  not  alto¬ 
gether  abandoned  hope  of  such  a  solution.  Our  differ¬ 
ences  with  the  liberal  party  in  the  Church  are  indeed  pro¬ 
found,  but  with  regard  to  the  obligation  of  simple  honesty 
of  speech,  some  agreement  might  surely  be  attained.  Cer¬ 
tainly  the  withdrawal  of  liberal  ministers  from  the  creedal 
churches  would  be  enormously  in  the  interests  of  harmony 
and  co-operation.  Nothing  engenders  strife  so  much  as  a 
forced  unity,  within  the  same  organization,  of  those  who 
disagree  fundamentally  in  aim. 

But  is  not  advocacy  of  such  separation  a  flagrant 
instance  of  intolerance?  The  objection  is  often  raised. 
But  it  ignores  altogether  the  difference  between  involun¬ 
tary  and  voluntary  organizations.  Involuntary  organi¬ 
zations  ought  to  be  tolerant,  but  voluntary  organizations, 
so  far  as  the  fundamental  purpose  of  their  existence  is 


168  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

concerned,  must  be  intolerant  or  else  cease  to  exist.  The 
state  is  an  involuntary  organization ;  a  man  is  forced  to 
be  a  member  of  it  whether  he  will  or  no.  It  is  therefore 
an  interference  with  liberty  for  the  state  to  prescribe  any 
one  type  of  opinion  or  any  one  type  of  education  for  its 
citizens.  But  within  the  state,  individual  citizens  who 
desire  to  unite  for  some  special  purpose  should  be  per¬ 
mitted  to  do  so.  Especially  in  the  sphere  of  religion,  such 
permission  of  individuals  to  unite  is  one  of  the  rights 
which  lie  at  the  very  foundation  of  our  civil  and  religious 
liberty.  The  state  does  not  scrutinize  the  rightness  or 
wrongness  of  the  religious  purpose  for  which  such  volun¬ 
tary  religious  associations  are  formed — if  it  did  under¬ 
take  such  scrutiny  all  religious  liberty  would  be  gone — but 
it  merely  protects  the  right  of  individuals  to  unite  for  any 
religious  purpose  which  they  may  choose. 

Among  such  voluntary  associations  are  to  be  found  the 
evangelical  churches.  An  evangelical  church  is  composed 
of  a  number  of  persons  who  have  come  to  agreement  in  a 
certain  message  about  Christ  and  who  desire  to  unite  in 
the  propagation  of  that  message,  as  it  is  set  forth  in  their 
creed  on  the  basis  of  the  Bible.  No  one  is  forced  to  unite 
himself  with  the  body  thus  formed;  and  because  of  this 
total  absence  of  compulsion  there  can  be  no  interference 
with  liberty  in  the  maintenance  of  any  specific  purpose — 
for  example,  the  propagation  of  a  message — as  a  funda¬ 
mental  purpose  of  the  association.  If  other  persons  de¬ 
sire  to  form  a  religious  association  with  some  purpose 
other  than  the  propagation  of  a  message — for  example, 
the  purpose  of  promoting  in  the  world,  simply  by  exhorta¬ 
tion  and  by  the  inspiration  of  the  example  of  Jesus,  a 
certain  type  of  life — they  are  at  perfect  liberty  to  do  so. 
But  for  an  organization  which  is  founded  with  the  funda¬ 
mental  purpose  of  propagating  a  message  to  commit  its 


The  Church 


169 


resources  and  its  name  to  those  who  are  engaged  in  com¬ 
bating  the  message  is  not  tolerance  but  simple  dishonesty. 
Yet  it  is  exactly  this  course  of  action  that  is  advocated 
by  those  who  would  allow  non-doctrinal  religion  to  be 
taught  in  the  name  of  doctrinal  churches — churches  that 
are  plainly  doctrinal  both  in  their  constitutions  and  in  the 
declarations  which  they  require  of  every  candidate  for 
ordination. 

The  matter  may  be  made  plain  by  an  illustration  from 
secular  life.  Suppose  in  a  political  campaign  in  America 
there  be  formed  a  Democratic  club  for  the  purpose  of 
furthering  the  cause  of  the  Democratic  party.  Suppose 
there  are  certain  other  citizens  who  are  opposed  to  the 
tenets  of  the  Democratic  club  and  in  opposition  desire  to 
support  the  Republican  party.  What  is  the  honest  way 
for  them  to  accomplish  their  purpose?  Plainly  it  is 
simply  the  formation  of  a  Republican  club  which  shall 
carry  on  a  propaganda  in  favor  of  Republican  principles. 
But  suppose,  instead  of  pursuing  this  simple  course  of 
action,  the  advocates  of  Republican  principles  should  con¬ 
ceive  the  notion  of  making  a  declaration  of  conformity  to 
Democratic  principles,  thus  gaining  an  entrance  into  the 
Democratic  club  and  finally  turning  its  resources  into  an 
anti-Democratic  propaganda.  That  plan  might  be  in¬ 
genious.  But  would  it  be  honest?  Yet  it  is  just  exactly 
such  a  plan  which  is  adopted  by  advocates  of  a  non-doc¬ 
trinal  religion  who  by  subscription  to  a  creed  gain  an 
entrance  into  the  teaching  ministry  of  doctrinal  or  evan¬ 
gelical  churches.  Let  no  one  be  offended  by  the  illustra¬ 
tion  taken  from  ordinary  life.  We  are  not  for  a  moment 
suggesting  that  the  Church  is  no  more  than  a  political 
club.  But  the  fact  that  the  Church  is  more  than  a  politi¬ 
cal  club  does  not  mean  that  in  ecclesiastical  affairs  there 
is  any  abrogation  of  the  homely  principles  of  honesty. 


170  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

The  Church  may  possibly  be  more  honest,  but  certainly  it 
ought  not  to  be  less  honest,  than  a  political  club. 

Certainly  the  essentially  creedal  character  of  evangeli¬ 
cal  churches  is  firmly  fixed.  A  man  may  disagree  with 
the  Westminster  Confession,  for  example,  but  he  can 
hardly  fail  to  see  what  it  means ;  at  least  he  can  hardly 
fail  to  understand  the  “system  of  doctrine’*  which  is 
taught  in  it.  The  Confession,  whatever  its  faults  may  be, 
is  certainly  not  lacking  in  definiteness.  And  certainly  a 
man  who  solemnly  accepts  that  system  of  doctrine  as  his 
own  cannot  at  the  same  time  be  an  advocate  of  a  non- 
doctrinal  religion  which  regards  as  a  trifling  thing  that 
which  is  the  very  sum  and  substance  of  the  Confession 
and  the  very  centre  and  core  of  the  Bible  upon  which  it  is 
based.  Similar  is  the  case  in  other  evangelical  churches. 
The  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  some  of  whose  mem¬ 
bers,  it  is  true,  might  resent  the  distinctive  title  of  “evan¬ 
gelical,”  is  clearly  founded  upon  a  creed,  and  that  creed, 
including  the  exultant  supernaturalism  of  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  and  the  redemption  offered  by  Christ,  is  plainly 
involved  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  which  every  priest 
in  his  own  name  and  in  the  name  of  the  congregation  must 
read. 

The  separation  of  naturalistic  liberalism  from  the  evan¬ 
gelical  churches  would  no  doubt  greatly  diminish  the  size 
of  the  churches.  But  Gideon’s  three  hundred  were  more 
powerful  than  the  thirty-two  thousand  with  which  the 
march  against  the  Midianites  began. 

Certainly  the  present  situation  is  fraught  with  deadly 
weakness.  Christian  men  have  been  redeemed  from  sin, 
without  merit  of  their  own,  by  the  sacrifice  of  Christ.  But 
every  man  who  has  been  truly  redeemed  from  sin  longs  to 
carry  to  others  the  same  blessed  gospel  through  which  he 
himself  has  been  saved.  The  propagation  of  the  gospel 


The  Church 


171 


is  clearly  the  joy  as  well  as  the  duty  of  every  Christian 
man.  But  how  shall  the  gospel  be  propagated?  The  nat¬ 
ural  answer  is  that  it  shall  be  propagated  through  the 
agencies  of  the  Church — boards  of  missions  and  the  like. 
An  obvious  duty,  therefore,  rests  upon  the  Christian  man 
of  contributing  to  the  agencies  of  the  Church.  But  at 
this  point  the  perplexity  arises.  The  Christian  man  dis¬ 
covers  to  his  consternation  that  the  agencies  of  the 
Church  are  propagating  not  only  the  gospel  as  found  in 
the  Bible  and  in  the  historic  creeds,  but  also  a  type  of 
religious  teaching  which  is  at  every  conceivable  point  the 
diametrical  opposite  of  the  gospel.  The  question  natu¬ 
rally  arises  whether  there  is  any  reason  for  contributing  to 
such  agencies  at  all.  Of  every  dollar  contributed  to  them, 
perhaps  half  goes  to  the  support  of  true  missionaries  of 
the  Cross,  while  the  other  half  goes  to  the  support  of 
those  who  are  persuading  men  that  the  message  of  the 
Cross  is  unnecessary  or  wrong.  If  part  of  our  gifts  is  to 
be  used  to  neutralize  the  other  part,  is  not  contribution 
to  mission  boards  altogether  absurd?  The  question  may 
at  least  very  naturally  be  raised.  It  should  not  indeed  be 
answered  hastily  in  a  way  hostile  to  contribution  to  mis¬ 
sion  boards.  Perhaps  it  is  better  that  the  gospel  should 
be  both  preached  and  combated  by  the  same  agencies 
than  that  it  should  not  be  preached  at  all.  At  any  rate, 
the  true  missionaries  of  the  Cross,  even  though  the  mission 
boards  which  support  them  should  turn  out  to  be  very 
bad,  must  not  be  allowed  to  be  in  want.  But  the  situation, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  evangelical  Christian,  is 
unsatisfactory  in  the  extreme.  Many  Christians  seek  to 
relieve  the  situation  by  “designating”  their  gifts,  instead 
of  allowing  them  to  be  distributed  by  the  mission  agencies. 
But  at  this  point  one  encounters  the  centralization  of 
power  which  is  going  on  in  the  modern  Church.  On 


172  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

account  of  that  centralization  the  designation  of  gifts  is 
often  found  to  be  illusory.  If  gifts  are  devoted  by  the 
donors  to  one  mission  known  to  be  evangelical,  that  does 
not  always  really  increase  the  resources  of  that  mission; 
for  the  mission  boards  can  simply  cut  down  the  propor¬ 
tion  assigned  to  that  mission  from  the  undesignated  funds, 
and  the  final  result  is  exactly  the  same  as  if  there  had  been 
no  designation  of  the  gift  at  all. 

The  existence  and  the  necessity  of  mission  boards  and 
the  like  prevents,  in  general,  one  obvious  solution  of  the 
present  difficulty  in  the  Church — the  solution  offered  by 
local  autonomy  of  the  congregation.  It  might  be  sug¬ 
gested  that  each  congregation  should  determine  its  own 
confession  of  faith  or  its  own  program  of  work.  Then 
each  congregation  might  seem  to  be  responsible  only  for 
itself,  and  might  seem  to  be  relieved  from  the  odious  task 
of  judging  others.  But  the  suggestion  is  impracticable. 
Aside  from  the  question  whether  a  purely  congregational 
system  of  church  government  is  desirable  in  itself,  it  is 
impossible  where  mission  agencies  are  concerned.  In  the 
support  of  such  agencies,  many  congregations  obviously 
must  unite;  and  the  question  arises  whether  evangelical 
congregations  can  honestly  support  agencies  which  are 
opposed  to  the  evangelical  faith. 

At  any  rate,  the  situation  cannot  be  helped  by  ignoring 
facts.  The  plain  fact  is  that  liberalism,  whether  it  be  true 
or  false,  is  no  mere  “heresy” — no  mere  divergence  at 
isolated  points  from  Christian  teaching.  On  the  contrary 
it  proceeds  from  a  totally  different  root,  and  it  consti¬ 
tutes,  in  essentials,  a  unitary  system  of  its  own.  That 
does  not  mean  that  all  liberals  hold  all  parts  of  the  sys¬ 
tem,  or  that  Christians  who  have  been  affected  by  liberal 
teaching  at  one  point  have  been  affected  at  all  points. 
There  is  sometimes  a  salutary  lack  of  logic  which  prevents 


The  Church 


173 


the  whole  of  a  man’s  faith  being  destroyed  when  he  has 
given  up  a  part.  But  the  true  way  in  which  to  examine  a 
spiritual  movement  is  in  its  logical  relations ;  logic  is  the 
great  dynamic,  and  the  logical  implications  of  any  way 
of  thinking  are  sooner  or  later  certain  to  be  worked  out. 
And  taken  as  a  whole,  even  as  it  actually  exists  to-day, 
naturalistic  liberalism  is  a  fairly  unitary  phenomenon;  it 
is  tending  more  and  more  to  eliminate  from  itself  illogical 
remnants  of  Christian  belief.  It  differs  from  Christianity 
in  its  view  of  God,  of  man,  of  the  seat  of  authority  and  of 
the  way  of  salvation.  And  it  differs  from  Christianity  not 
only  in  theology  but  in  the  whole  of  life.  It  is  indeed 
sometimes  said  that  there  can  be  communion  in  feeling 
where  communion  in  thinking  is  gone,  a  communion  of  the 
heart  as  distinguished  from  a  communion  of  the  head. 
But  with  respect  to  the  present  controversy,  such  a  dis¬ 
tinction  certainly  does  not  apply.  On  the  contrary,  in 
reading  the  books  and  listening  to  the  sermons  of  recent 
liberal  teachers — so  untroubled  by  the  problem  of  sin,  so 
devoid  of  all  sympathy  for  guilty  humanity,  so  prone  to 
abuse  and  ridicule  the  things  dearest  to  the  heart  of  every 
Christian  man — one  can  only  confess  that  if  liberalism  is 
to  return  into  the  Christian  communion  there  must  be  a 
change  of  heart  fully  as  much  as  a  change  of  mind.  God 
grant  that  such  a  change  of  heart  may  come !  But  mean¬ 
while  the  present  situation  must  not  be  ignored  but  faced. 
Christianity  is  being  attacked  from  within  by  a  movement 
which  is  anti-Christian  to  the  core. 

What  is  the  duty  of  Christian  men  at  such  at  time? 
What  is  the  duty,  in  particular,  of  Christian  officers  in 
the  Church? 

In  the  first  place,  they  should  encourage  those  who  are 
engaging  in  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  struggle.  They 
should  not  say,  in  the  sense  in  which  some  laymen  say  it, 


174  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

that  more  time  should  be  devoted  to  the  propagation  of 
Christianity,  and  less  to  the  defence  of  Christianity. 
Certainly  there  should  be  propagation  of  Christianity. 
Believers  should  certainly  not  content  themselves  with 
warding  off  attacks,  but  should  also  unfold  in  an  orderly 
and  positive  way  the  full  riches  of  the  gospel.  But  far 
more  is  usually  meant  by  those  who  call  for  less  defence 
and  more  propagation.  What  they  really  intend  is  the 
discouragement  of  the  whole  intellectual  defence  of  the 
faith.  And  their  words  come  as  a  blow  in  the  face  of 
those  who  are  fighting  the  great  battle.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  not  less  time,  but  more  time,  should  be  devoted  to 
the  defence  of  the  gospel.  Indeed,  truth  cannot  be  stated 
clearly  at  all  without  being  set  over  against  error.  Thus 
a  large  part  of  the  New  Testament  is  polemic;  the  enun¬ 
ciation  of  evangelical  truth  was  occasioned  by  the  errors 
which  had  arisen  in  the  churches.  So  it  will  always  be,  on 
account  of  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  human  mind. 
Moreover,  the  present  crisis  must  be  taken  into  account. 
There  may  have  been  a  day  when  there  could  be  propaga¬ 
tion  of  Christianity  without  defence.  But  such  a  day  at 
any  rate  is  past.  At  the  present  time,  when  the  opponents 
of  the  gospel  are  almost  in  control  of  our  churches,  the 
slightest  avoidance  of  the  defence  of  the  gospel  is  just 
sheer  unfaithfulness  to  the  Lord.  There  have  been  pre¬ 
vious  great  crises  in  the  history  of  the  Church,  crises 
almost  comparable  to  this.  One  appeared  in  the  second 
century,  when  the  very  life  of  Christendom  was  threatened 
by  the  Gnostics.  Another  came  in  the  Middle  Ages  when 
the  gospel  of  God’s  grace  seemed  forgotten.  In  such  times 
of  crisis,  God  has  always  saved  the  Church.  But  He  has 
always  saved  it  not  by  theological  pacifists,  but  by  sturdy 
contenders  for  the  truth. 

In  the  second  place,  Christian  officers  in  the  Church 


The  Church 


175 


should  perform  their  duty  in  deciding  upon  the  qualifica¬ 
tions  of  candidates  for  the  ministry.  The  question  “For 
Christ  or  against  him?”  constantly  arises  in  the  examina¬ 
tion  of  candidates  for  ordination.  Attempts  are  often 
made  to  obscure  the  issue.  It  is  often  said:  “The  candi¬ 
date  will  no  doubt  move  in  the  direction  of  the  truth;  let 
him  now  be  sent  out  to  learn  as  well  as  to  preach.”  And 
so  another  opponent  of  the  gospel  enters  the  councils  of 
the  Church,  and  another  false  prophet  goes  forth  to  en¬ 
courage  sinners  to  come  before  the  judgment  seat  of  God 
clad  in  the  miserable  rags  of  their  own  righteousness. 
Such  action  is  not  really  “kind”  to  the  candidate  himself. 
It  is  never  kind  to  encourage  a  man  to  enter  into  a  life 
of  dishonesty.  The  fact  often  seems  to  be  forgotten  that 
the  evangelical  Churches  are  purely  voluntary  organiza¬ 
tions  ;  no  one  is  required  to  enter  into  their  service.  If  a 
man  cannot  accept  the  belief  of  such  churches,  there  are 
other  ecclesiastical  bodies  in  which  he  can  find  a  place. 
The  belief  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  for  example,  is 
plainly  set  forth  in  the  Confession  of  Faith,  and  the 
Church  will  never  afford  any  warmth  of  communion  or 
engage  with  any  real  vigor  in  her  work  until  her  ministers 
are  in  whole-hearted  agreement  with  that  belief.  It  is 
strange  how  in  the  interests  of  an  utterly  false  kindness 
to  men,  Christians  are  sometimes  willing  to  relinquish 
their  loyalty  to  the  crucified  Lord. 

In  the  third  place,  Christian  officers  in  the  Church 
should  show  their  loyalty  to  Christ  in  their  capacity  as 
members  of  the  individual  congregations.  The  issue  often 
arises  in  connection  with  the  choice  of  a  pastor.  Such  and 
such  a  man,  it  is  said,  is  a  brilliant  preacher.  But  what  is 
the  content  of  his  preaching?  Is  his  preaching  full  of 
the  gospel  of  Christ?  The  answer  is  often  evasive.  The 
preacher  in  question,  it  is  said,  is  of  good  standing  in  the 


176  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

Church,  and  he  has  never  denied  the  doctrines  of  grace. 
Therefore,  it  is  urged,  he  should  be  called  to  the  pastor¬ 
ate.  But  shall  we  be  satisfied  with  such  negative  assur¬ 
ances?  Shall  we  be  satisfied  with  preachers  who  merely 
“do  not  deny”  the  Cross  of  Christ?  God  grant  that  such 
satisfaction  may  be  broken  down !  The  people  are  perish¬ 
ing  under  the  ministrations  of  those  who  “do  not  deny” 
the  Cross  of  Christ.  Surely  something  more  than  that  is 
needed.  God  send  us  ministers  who,  instead  of  merely 
avoiding  denial  of  the  Cross  shall  be  on  fire  with  the 
Cross,  whose  whole  life  shall  be  one  burning  sacrifice  of 
gratitude  to  the  blessed  Saviour  who  loved  them  and  gave 
Himself  for  them ! 

In  the  fourth  place — the  most  important  thing  of  all — 
there  must  be  a  renewal  of  Christian  education.  The 
rejection  of  Christianity  is  due  to  various  causes.  But  a 
very  potent  cause  is  simple  ignorance.  In  countless  cases, 
Christianity  is  rejected  simply  because  men  have  not  the 
slightest  notion  of  what  Christianity  is.  An  outstanding 
fact  of  recent  Church  history  is  the  appalling  growth  of 
ignorance  in  the  Church.  Various  causes,  no  doubt,  can 
be  assigned  for  this  lamentable  development.  The  devel¬ 
opment  is  due  partly  to  the  general  decline  of  education — * 
at  least  so  far  as  literature  and  history  are  concerned. 
The  schools  of  the  present  day  are  being  ruined  by  the 
absurd  notion  that  education  should  follow  the  line  of 
least  resistance,  and  that  something  can  be  “drawn  out” 
of  the  mind  before  anything  is  put  in.  They  are 
also  being  ruined  by  an  exaggerated  emphasis  on  method¬ 
ology  at  the  expense  of  content  and  on  what  is  materially 
useful  at  the  expense  of  the  high  spiritual  heritage 
of  mankind.  These  lamentable  tendencies,  moreover, 
are  in  danger  of  being  made  permanent  through  the 
sinister  extension  of  state  control.  But  something  more 


The  Church 


177 


than  the  general  decline  in  education  is  needed  to  ac¬ 
count  for  the  special  growth  of  ignorance  in  the  Church. 
The  growth  of  ignorance  in  the  Church  is  the  logical 
and  inevitable  result  of  the  false  notion  that  Christianity 
is  a  life  and  not  also  a  doctrine ;  if  Christianity  is  not 
a  doctrine  then  of  course  teaching  is  not  necessary 
to  Christianity.  But  whatever  be  the  causes  for  the 
growth  of  ignorance  in  the  Church,  the  evil  must  be  reme¬ 
died.  It  must  be  remedied  primarily  by  the  renewal  of 
Christian  education  in  the  family,  but  also  by  the  use  of 
whatever  other  educational  agencies  the  Church  can  find. 
Christian  education  is  the  chief  business  of  the  hour  for 
every  earnest  Christian  man,  Christianity  cannot  subsist 
unless  men  know  what  Christianity  is ;  and  the  fair  and 
logical  thing  is  to  learn  what  Christianity  is,  not  from  its 
opponents,  but  from  those  who  themselves  are  Christians. 
That  method  of  procedure  would  be  the  only  fair  method 
in  the  case  of  any  movement.  But  it  is  still  more  in  place 
in  the  case  of  a  movement  such  as  Christianity  which  has 
laid  the  foundation  of  all  that  we  hold  most  dear.  Men 
have  abundant  opportunity  to-day  to  learn  what  can  be 
said  against  Christianity,  and  it  is  only  fair  that  they 
should  also  learn  something  about  the  thing  that  is  being 
attacked. 

Such  measures  are  needed  to-day.  The  present  is  a 
time  not  for  ease  or  pleasure,  but  for  earnest  and 
prayerful  work.  A  terrible  crisis  unquestionably  has 
arisen  in  the  Church.  In  the  ministry  of  evangelical 
churches  are  to  be  found  hosts  of  those  who  reject  the 
gospel  of  Christ.  By  the  equivocal  use  of  traditional 
phrases,  by  the  representation  of  differences  of  opinion  as 
though  they  were  only  differences  about  the  interpretation 
of  the  Bible,  entrance  into  the  Church  was  secured  for 
those  who  are  hostile  to  the  very  foundations  of  the  faith. 


178  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

And  now  there  are  some  indications  that  the  fiction  of 
conformity  to  the  past  is  to  be  thrown  off,  and  the  real 
meaning  of  what  has  been  taking  place  is  to  be  allowed 
to  appear.  The  Church,  it  is  now  apparently  supposed, 
has  almost  been  educated  up  to  the  point  where  the 
shackles  of  the  Bible  can  openly  be  cast  away  and  the 
doctrine  of  the  Cross  of  Christ  can  be  relegated  to  the 
limbo  of  discarded  subtleties. 

Yet  there  is  in  the  Christian  life  no  room  for  despair. 
Only,  our  hopefulness  should  not  be  founded  on  the  sand. 
It  should  be  founded,  not  upon  a  blind  ignorance  of  the 
danger,  but  solely  upon  the  precious  promises  of  God. 
Laymen,  as  well  as  ministers,  should  return,  in  these  try¬ 
ing  days,  with  new  earnestness,  to  the  study  of  the  Word 
of  God. 

If  the  Word  of  God  be  heeded,  the  Christian  battle  will 
be  fought  both  with  love  and  with  faithfulness.  Party 
passions  and  personal  animosities  will  be  put  away,  but 
on  the  other  hand,  even  angels  from  heaven  will  be  rejected 
if  they  preach  a  gospel  different  from  the  blessed  gospel 
of  the  Cross.  Every  man  must  decide  upon  which  side  he 
will  stand.  God  grant  that  we  may  decide  aright ! 

What  the  immediate  future  may  bring  we  cannot  pre¬ 
sume  to  say.  The  final  result  indeed  is  clear.  God  has 
not  deserted  His  Church;  He  has  brought  her  through 
even  darker  hours  than  those  which  try  our  courage  now, 
yet  the  darkest  hour  has  always  come  before  the  dawn. 
We  have  to-day  the  entrance  of  paganism  into  the  Church 
in  the  name  of  Christianity.  But  in  the  second  century 
a  similar  battle  was  fought  and  won.  From  another  point 
of  view,  modern  liberalism  is  like  the  legalism  of  the  middle 
ages,  with  its  dependence  upon  the  merit  of  man.  And 
another  Reformation  in  God’s  good  time  will  come. 

But  meanwhile  our  souls  are  tried.  We  can  only  try  to 


The  Church 


179 


do  our  duty  in  humility  and  in  sole  reliance  upon  the 
Saviour  who  bought  us  with  His  blood.  The  future  is  in 
God’s  hand,  and  we  do  not  know  the  means  that  He  will 
use  in  the  accomplishment  of  His  will.  It  may  be  that  the 
present  evangelical  churches  will  face  the  facts,  and 
regain  their  integrity  while  yet  there  is  time.  If  that 
solution  is  to  be  adopted  there  is  no  time  to  lose,  since  the 
forces  opposed  to  the  gospel  are  now  almost  in  control. 
It  is  possible  that  the  existing  churches  may  be  given  over 
altogether  to  naturalism,  that  men  may  then  see  that  the 
fundamental  needs  of  the  soul  are  to  be  satisfied  not  inside 
but  outside  of  the  existing  churches,  and  that  thus  new 
Christian  groups  may  be  formed. 

But  whatever  solution  there  may  be,  one  thing  is  clear. 
There  must  be  somewhere  groups  of  redeemed  men  and 
women  who  can  gather  together  humbly  in  the  name  of 
Christ,  to  give  thanks  to  Him  for  His  unspeakable  gift 
and  to  worship  the  Father  through  Him.  Such  groups 
alone  can  satisfy  the  needs  of  the  soul.  At  the  present 
time,  there  is  one  longing  of  the  human  heart  which  is 
often  forgotten — it  is  the  deep,  pathetic  longing  of  the 
Christian  for  fellowship  with  his  brethren.  One  hears 
much,  it  is  true,  about  Christian  union  and  harmony  and 
co-operation.  But  the  union  that  is  meant  is  often  a 
union  with  the  world  against  the  Lord,  or  at  best  a  forced 
union  of  machinery  and  tyrannical  committees.  How  dif¬ 
ferent  is  the  true  unity  of  the  Spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace! 
Sometimes,  it  is  true,  the  longing  for  Christian  fellowship 
is  satisfied.  There  are  congregations,  even  in  the  present 
age  of  conflict,  that  are  really  gathered  around  the  table 
of  the  crucified  Lord ;  there  are  pastors  that  are  pastors 
indeed.  But  such  congregations,  in  many  cities,  are  diffi¬ 
cult  to  find.  Weary  with  the  conflicts  of  the  world,  one 
goes  into  the  Church  to  seek  refreshment  for  the  soul. 


180  Christianity  and  Liberalism 

And  what  does  one  find?  Alas,  too  often,  one  finds  only 
the  turmoil  of  the  world.  The  preacher  comes  forward, 
not  out  of  a  secret  place  of  meditation  and  power,  not 
with  the  authority  of  God’s  Word  permeating  his  message, 
not  with  human  wisdom  pushed  far  into  the  background 
by  the  glory  of  the  Cross,  but  with  human  opinions  about 
the  social  problems  of  the  hour  or  easy  solutions  of  the 
vast  problem  of  sin.  Such  is  the  sermon.  And  then  per¬ 
haps  the  service  is  closed  by  one  of  those  hymns  breathing 
out  the  angry  passions  of  1861,  which  are  to  be  found 
in  the  back  part  of  the  hymnals.  Thus  the  warfare  of 
the  world  has  entered  even  into  the  house  of  God,  And 
sad  indeed  is  the  heart  of  the  man  who  has  come  seeking 
peace. 

Is  there  no  refuge  from  strife?  Is  there  no  place  of 
refreshing  where  a  man  can  prepare  for  the  battle  of  life? 
Is  there  no  place  where  two  or  three  can  gather  in  Jesus’ 
name,  to  forget  for  the  moment  all  those  things  that  divide 
nation  from  nation  and  race  from  race,  to  forget  human 
pride,  to  forget  the  passions  of  war,  to  forget  the  puzzling 
problems  of  industrial  strife,  and  to  unite  in  overflowing 
gratitude  at  the  foot  of  the  Cross?  If  there  be  such  a 
place,  then  that  is  the  house  of  God  and  that  the  gate  of 
heaven.  And  from  under  the  threshold  of  that  house  will 
go  forth  a  river  that  will  revive  the  weary  world. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


I  NAMES  AND  SUBJECTS 


Abbott,  Lyman,  23. 

America:  political  changes  in,  10- 
15;  schools  in,  11-14. 

Americanization,  149,  152. 

Anglican  Church,  51. 

Apostles,  given  authority  by 
Jesus,  76f. 

Apostolic  succession,  doctrine  of, 

51. 

Applied  Christianity,  155  f. 

Arianism,  113. 

Arminianism,  51  f. 

Art,  decline  in,  10. 

Atonement,  117-136:  liberal  the¬ 
ories  of,  based  upon  a  light 
view  of  sin,  119;  Christian  view 
of,  scorned  by  liberalism,  119f., 
160;  Christian  view  of,  criti¬ 
cized  on  the  ground  that  it 
makes  salvation  depend  on 
history,  120-122,  that  it  limits 
salvation,  122-125,  that  it  in¬ 
volves  transference  of  guilt 
from  one  person  to  another, 
125-129,  that  it  involves  a  low 
view  of  the  love  of  God,  129- 
135;  Christian  doctrine  of,  ne¬ 
cessity  of  earnest  devotion  to, 
175f. ;  atonement  was  made  by 
God  Himself,  132. 

Authority:  the  seat  of,  75-79;  of 
Jesus,  not  really  accepted  by 
liberalism,  76-78. 

Bengel,  139. 

Bible,  the:  Christian  and  liberal 
views  of,  contrasted,  69-79;  re¬ 
iterates  the  presuppositions  of 

183 


the  gospel,  69;  contains  an  ac¬ 
count  of  a  redeeming  event, 
69-72;  forms  the  basis  for  the 
creeds,  163,  165. 

Bolshevism,  150f. 

Bousset,  82. 

Brotherhood,  18f. ;  Christian  and 
liberal  views  of,  contrasted, 
157f. 

Bunyan,  John,  46. 

Burton,  E.  D.,  144. 

Calvin,  45. 

Calvinism,  51. 

Cause,  idea  of,  101. 

Chamberlain,  Houston  Stewart, 
33. 

Chester  Presbytery,  address  de¬ 
livered  before  Ruling  Elders’ 
Association  of,  vii. 

Chiliasm,  49. 

Christianity:  modern  presump¬ 
tion  against,  4;  relation  of,  to 
science,  4-7 ;  is  it  a  life  as 
distinguished  from  a  doctrine, 

19- 53;  fundamental  nature  of, 
determined  by  its  beginnings, 

20- 45;  was  at  its  inception  a 
life  founded  upon  a  message, 
21 ;  cannot  be  treated  as  a  mere 
means  to  an  end,  151f. ;  social 
aspects  of,  152-156. 

Church,  the:  responsibility  of, 
124  f. ;  Christian  and  liberal 
views  of,  contrasted,  157-180; 
has  admitted  non-Christian 
men  into  teaching  agencies, 
159f.;  need  for  division  in,  160- 


184 


Index 


172;  liberal  program  for  unity 
in,  161  f. 

Clubs,  political,  illustration 
drawn  from,  169f. 

Collectivism,  12,  14,  64f.,  153. 

Community,  the:  religion  some¬ 
times  accepted  for  the  sake  of, 
151 ;  is  restricting  the  place  of 
the  family,  154. 

Confucius,  34. 

Conservative  party,  should  it 
withdraw  from  the  existing 
churches,  166. 

Creation,  99-102,  105. 

Creeds :  regarded  by  liberalism  as 
mere  expressions  of  Christian 
experience,  18f. ;  Christian  con¬ 
ception  of,  19;  significance  of, 
in  the  evangelical  churches, 
159-170. 

Culture,  relation  of,  to  Christi¬ 
anity,  4-6. 

Cynics,  47. 

Death  of  Christ,  necessary  to  our 
relation  to  Him,  39-44  (see 
also  Atonement). 

Defence  of  Christianity,  need  of, 
173f. 

Deism,  100. 

Deity  of  Christ:  according  to 
liberalism,  109-112;  Christian 
doctrine  of,  112-116;  refutes 
argument  against  the  doctrine 
of  the  atonement,  125-129. 

Denney,  James,  83f. 

Doctrine:  Christian  and  liberal 
attitudes  toward,  contrasted, 
17-53;  was  fundamental  in 
Paul,  21-26;  was  fundamental 
in  the  Jerusalem  Church,  26- 
29;  involves  facts  and  the 
meaning  of  them,  29;  was 
fundamental  in  the  teaching  of 
Jesus,  29-39;  necessity  of,  for 
our  relation  to  Jesus,  39-44; 
lies  at  the  roots  of  faith,  44; 
meaning  of  the  term,  45-47 ;  re¬ 
lation  between  doctrine  and 
life,  47f.;  not  all  points  of  doc¬ 
trine  equally  important,  48-52. 


Doctrines,  of  modern  liberalism, 
18f. 

Downs,  Francis  Shunk,  155. 

Education:  state  control  of,  11- 
14;  the  need  of  Christian  edu¬ 
cation,  176f. 

Error,  is  it  found  in  the  Bible, 
74-76. 

Evangelical  churches,  founded 
upon  creeds,  159-170. 

Exclusiveness  of  Christianity, 
123-125. 

Experience:  regarded  by  liberal¬ 
ism  as  the  producer  of  creeds, 
18f . ;  confirms  history,  but  is 
not  a  substitute  for  history, 
70-72,  120-122;  is  the  seat  of 
authority  according  to  liberal¬ 
ism,  78f. 

Faith:  Christian  and  liberal  views 
of,  contrasted,  141-147 ;  to  be 
distinguished  from  reverence, 
44;  faith  in  Jesus,  81-91. 

Family,  the,  154. 

Fatherhood  of  God,  the,  18,  58- 
62. 

Feeling:  not  the  whole  of  reli¬ 
gion,  54f.;  division  in,  between 
Christianity  and  liberalism, 
173. 

Fellowship,  Christian,  179f. 

Fosdick,  Harry  Emerson,  120. 

Funds,  of  evangelical  churches, 
166. 

Galatians,  Epistle  to  the,  22-25, 
143f. 

Gideon,  illustration  drawn  from, 
170. 

Gnosticism,  174,  178. 

God:  Christian  and  liberal  views 
of,  contrasted,  54-63;  knowl¬ 
edge  of,  necessary  to  religion, 
54f.;  how  may  He  be  known, 
55-58;  transcendence  of,  62 f. ; 
immanence  of,  62f.;  com¬ 
munion  with,  153f. 

Goethe,  8. 

Golden  Rule,  the,  37f. 


Index 


185 


Gospel,  meaning  of  the  word,  121. 

Gospels,  the:  present  Jesus  as  a 
supernatural  Person,  98f. ;  are 
primary  sources  of  informa¬ 
tion,  80. 

Grace  of  God,  the,  according  to 
Paul,  24f. 

Guilt,  alleged  impossibility  of  re¬ 
moval  of,  by  one  person’s  suf¬ 
fering  instead  of  another,  125f. 

Healing,  Jesus’  works  of,  107f. 

Heaven:  the  Christian  hope  of, 
147f. ;  neglect  of,  in  the  liberal 
program,  148-151. 

Heitmiiller,  33,  82. 

Hellenistic  age,  the,  123. 

History:  salvation  dependent  up¬ 
on,  70-72,  120-122;  confirmed 
by  experience,  122. 

History  and  Faith ,  28,  70,  99, 
106,  121. 

Holy  Spirit,  the:  produces  the 
consciousness  of  sin,  67 f . ;  ap¬ 
plies  the  redeeming  work  of 
Christ  to  the  individual,  136- 
141;  the  work  of,  in  sanctifica¬ 
tion,  146f. 

Honesty,  lllf.,  162-172. 

Hope,  place  of,  in  the  Christian 
life,  147  f. 

Humanity  of  Christ,  114. 

Hymns,  dealing  with  the  Cross, 
126-128. 

Idealism,  lOOf. 

India,  151. 

Individualism,  11,  152f. 

Industrial  relations,  149f. 

Industrialism,  3,  155. 

Inquisition,  the,  14. 

Inspiration  of  the  Bible,  72-79. 

Inventions,  modern,  3. 

Iowa,  school  law  in,  12. 

James,  Epistle  of,  146. 

Japan,  151. 

Jerusalem  Church,  the  early: 
was  based  upon  doctrine,  26- 
29;  stood  in  a  religious  rela¬ 
tion  to  Jesus,  82f. ;  relation  of, 


to  Paul,  26f.,  82f.,  97f. ;  re¬ 
garded  Jesus  as  a  supernatural 
Person,  97f. 

Jesus  Christ:  Christian  and  lib¬ 
eral  views  of,  contrasted,  80- 
116;  historicity  of,  important 
for  Christianity,  5;  teaching  of, 
involves  doctrine,  29-38;  teach¬ 
ing  of,  about  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  31  f. ;  teaching  of,  about 
the  work  of  redemption,  32 f. ; 
Messianic  consciousness  of,  33- 

39,  78,  83-87,  116;  ethical 

teaching  of,  35-38;  was  the  ob¬ 
ject  of  faith  during  His  earthly 
ministry,  38f.;  historicity  of, 

40,  106f.;  resurrection  of,  28f., 

39-41,  108f.,  135  f.;  return  of, 
48-50;  is  not  the  only  source 
of  our  knowledge  of  God,  55f. ; 
was  a  theist,  56f. ;  teaching  of, 
about  the  fatherhood  of  God, 
58-62;  authority  of,  not  really 
accepted  by  liberalism,  76-78; 
was  the  object  of  faith  for 

Paul  and  for  the  early  Jerusa¬ 
lem  Church,  81-83,  90f. ;  imita¬ 
tion  of,  according  to  Paul, 

81  f . ;  was  represented  by  Him¬ 
self  as  the  object  of  faith, 

83f. ;  was  not  a  Christian,  85- 
92;  had  a  religion,  91  f. ;  is  our 
example,  92-94;  if  He  is  only 
an  example,  is  not  a  perfect 
example,  94f. ;  was  a  super¬ 

natural  Person,  96-109;  virgin 
birth  of,  108f. ;  deity  of,  ac¬ 
cording  to  liberalism,  109-112; 
deity  of,  according  to  Chris¬ 
tianity,  112-116;  humanity  of, 
114;  the  two  natures  of,  114- 
116;  atoning  death  of,  117-136; 
has  given  to  believers  a  new 
life,  136. 

John,  Gospel  according  to,  114. 

Johnson,  William  Hallock,  1. 

Joy  in  religion,  how  attained,  132- 
135. 

Judaizers,  the,  22-25,  82  f.,  98. 

Justice  of  God,  the,  129-131. 

Justification  by  faith,  141-145. 


186 


Index 


Kant,  57. 

Kingdom  of  God,  the,  31,  36,  38. 

Law,  the,  controversy  about,  in 
Apostolic  Age,  22-25,  83. 

Legalism,  in  the  modern  Church, 
38,  I43f. 

Liberalism:  definition  of,  2; 
causes  for  the  rise  of,  2-7 ;  is 
non-Christian,  2,  6-8;  attempts 
to  rescue  Christianity,  6;  uni¬ 
tary  character  of,  172f. 

Liberty,  loss  of,  through  modern 
collectivism,  10-15;  the  liberty 
of  the  Christian  man,  144 f. 

Life:  importance  of  insistence 
on,  47 ;  produced  in  the  early 
Church  by  a  message,  47f. 

“Life-purpose”  of  Jesus,  the, 
77f. 

Literature,  decline  in,  10. 

Lord,'  the  title,  as  applied  to 
Jesus,  97. 

Lord’s  Supper,  the,  50f. 

Love  of  God,  the,  131-135. 

Lusk  Laws,  the,  13f. 

Luther,  50f.,  143f. 

Lutheranism,  50 f. 

Man,  Christian  and  liberal  views 
of,  contrasted,  63-68. 

Marburg  Conference,  the,  50f. 

Materialism,  6. 

Mediating  view  of  the  Bible,  75f. 

Membership  in  the  Church,  to  be 
distinguished  from  the  minis¬ 
try,  163f. 

Merit,  human,  insufficiency  of,  ac¬ 
cording  to  Paul,  24f. 

Messianic  consciousness  of  Jesus, 
33-39,  78,  83-87,  116. 

Metaphysics,  rejected  by  liberal¬ 
ism,  11  Of. 

Miracles:  definition  of,  99-101; 
do  not  destroy  the  basis  of 
science,  101f.;  importance  of, 
102-104,  109,  must  be  taken  in 
connection  with  the  character 
of  Jesus,  104;  supported  by 
the  existence  of  an  adequate 
occasion,  104-106;  historical  evi¬ 


dence  for,  106f. ;  rejected  by 
liberalism,  107-109. 

Mission  boards,  170-172. 

Missions,  purpose  of,  150f.,  156. 

Modern  world,  spiritual  decline 
in,  9-15. 

Modernism,  definition  of,  2. 

Moral  law,  the,  reveals  God,  55. 

Mysticism,  120. 

Narrowness,  real  meaning  of  the 
word,  160-162. 

Naturalism,  definition  of,  2. 

Nature,  reveals  God,  55. 

Nebraska,  school  law  in,  12. 

Nero,  the  Roman  Empire  un¬ 
der,  19f.,  154f. 

New  Birth,  the,  136-141. 

New  York,  laws  of,  relating  to 
teachers,  13f. 

Nicene  Creed,  the,  46. 

QEcolampadius,  50. 

Officers  in  the  Church,  duty  of, 
173-176. 

Ohio,  school  law  in,  12. 

Ordination:  questions  required  of 
candidates  for,  162f.;  examina¬ 
tion  of  candidates  for,  174f. 

Oregon,  school  law  in,  12f. 

Origin  of  Paul’s  Religion,  The, 
23,  26,  33,  35,  80,  97. 

Pantheism,  63,  74f.,  100,  00. 

Pastors,  choice  of,  175. 

Patton,  Francis  L.,  1. 

Paul:  tolerance  of,  21  f . ;  attitude 
of,  toward  the  Judaizers,  22- 
25;  was  not  the  founder  of  a 
new  religion,  26f.;  stood  in  a 
religious  relation  to  Jesus,  81f. ; 
conversion  of,  82;  relation  of, 
to  the  early  Jerusalem  Church, 
26f.,  82f.,  97f. 

Pauline  Epistles,  the:  as  sources 
of  information  about  the  be¬ 
ginnings  of  Christianity,  21, 
80;  testimony  of,  to  Christ,  80- 
83,  96-98,  113f. 

Peace,  international,  150-152. 


Index  187 


Personality,  modern  contraction 
of,  lOf. 

Phillimore,  123. 

Pietists,  the,  9. 

Pilgrim’s  Progress,  46. 

Plenary  inspiration,  doctrine  of, 
72-76. 

Poetry,  decline  in,  10. 

Polemics,  need  of,  173f. 

“Practical”  knowledge  of  God, 
according  to  liberalism,  56  f. 

Pragmatism,  23. 

Premillennialism,  48-50. 

Presbyterian,  The,  vii,  76,  118, 
126. 

Presbyterian  Church,  the,  175; 
constitutional  questions  in, 
162f. 

Presuppositions  of  the  gospel,  54- 

68. 

Princeton  Theological  Review, 
vii,  28,  33. 

Prodigal  Son,  parable  of  the,  60. 

Protestant  Episcopal  Church, 
the,  170. 

Providence,  to  be  distinguished 
from  creation,  99-102. 

Psychology,  6,  13. 

Rapid  Survey  of  the  Literature 
and  History  of  New  Testament 
Times,  A,  29,  42. 

Reformation,  the,  143f. 

Reformed  churches,  the,  50f. 

Reformed  theology,  the,  51  f. 

Regeneration,  136-141. 

Religion,  often  regarded  as  a 
mere  means  to  an  end,  148-152. 

Resurrection  of  Christ,  the,  108f. ; 
was  at  the  foundation  of  the 
Church,  28f. ;  is  necessary  for 
our  relation  to  Him,  39-41, 
135  f. 

Return  of  Christ,  the,  48-50. 

Robinson,  Harold  McA.,  150. 

Roman  Catholic  Church,  the,  52, 
160f. 

Schools:  state  control  of,  11-14, 
176;  community  control  of, 
154;  faults  of,  176. 


Science:  progress  of,  2f. ;  relation 
of,  to  Christianity,  4-7. 

Sacraments,  the,  doctrine  of,  50f. 

Salvation:  Christian  and  liberal 
views  of,  contrasted,  117-156. 

Sanctification,  145-147. 

Seminaries,  theological,  17. 

Septuagint,  the,  97. 

Sermon  on  the  Mount,  the,  35- 
38,  60,  78. 

Sin:  consciousness  of,  64-68;  no 
consciousness  of,  in  Jesus,  87- 
89;  consciousness  of,  necessary 
for  an  acceptance  of  the  mira¬ 
cles,  105  f. ;  conquest  of,  by 
Jesus,  104-106;  light  view  of,  at 
the  basis  of  modern  theories  of 
the  atonement,  119,  129-131; 
necessity  of  atonement  for, 
129-136;  modern  methods  of 
overcoming,  136-138;  continued 
battle  against,  in  the  Christian 
life,  145-147. 

Sinlessness  of  Jesus,  wavering  at¬ 
titude  of  liberalism  toward,  87- 
89. 

Social  aspects  of  Christianity, 
152-156. 

“Social  gospel,”  the,  152. 

Socialism,  10. 

Society,  how  is  it  to  be  trans¬ 
formed,  154-156. 

Socrates,  8. 

State,  the,  place  of  recognized  by 
Christianity,  154f.  (see  also 
Schools  and  Education). 

Stoics,  the,  47f. 

Supernatural,  the:  definition  of, 
99-102;  cannot  be  separated 
from  the  rest  of  the  Gospel  ac¬ 
count  of  Jesus,  106 f.  (see  also 
Miracles). 

Syncretism,  123. 

Synoptic  Gospels,  the,  attest  deity 
of  Christ,  114. 

Theism,  55-58,  62f.,  99-102,  llOf. 

Theology:  place  of,  in  our  rela¬ 
tion  to  Jesus,  39-47;  of  the 
historical  creeds,  45f.  (see  also 
Doctrine  and  Creeds). 


188 


Index 


Third  Floor  Back,  the  recent 
play  introducing  lodger  in  the, 
136f. 

Titanic,  the,  127. 

Truthfulness  in  language,  defini¬ 
tion  of,  11  If. 

Turrettin,  45. 

Two  natures,  doctrine  of  the,  114- 
116. 

“Un-Christian,”  explanation  of 
the  term,  8. 

Unitarianism,  111,  165. 

Unity  in  the  Church,  the  liberal 
program  for,  160-172. 

Universities,  17. 

Utilitarianism,  Ilf. 


Virgin  birth,  the,  108f. 

Voluntary  organizations,  distin¬ 
guished  from  involuntary,  167- 
170. 

Weiss,  J.,  34f. 

Wells,  H.  G.,  10,  31,  34. 
Westminster  Confession,  the,  46, 
170. 

Westminster  divines,  the,  45. 
Witnessing,  the  prime  duty  of 
Christians,  52f. 

World  War,  the,  64f.,  67,  138. 
Worms,  Diet  at,  50f. 

Wrath  of  God,  the,  131,  133f. 
Wrede,  W.,  34. 

Zwingli,  50. 


II  BIBLICAL  PASSAGES 


Matthew — 

v.  44f .  60 

vi.  33  .  152 

vii.  12 .  37f. 

vii.  21-23  .  36  f. 

xi.  27  .  114 

xi.  28  .  38  f. 


Mark — * 

x.  18  .  89 

x.  45  . 32,  77 


Luke — 

ix.  60 

x.  22  . 
xiv.  26 


. ..  95 

. ..  114 
95,  151  f. 


John — 
iii.  7  .  . 
iii.  16 
xiv.  9 
xix.  30 


136,  156 
. ...  132 
. . . .  56 
. ...  135 


Romans — 


viii.  1-39  .... 

.  44 

ix.  5  . 

.  97 

xiii.  1  . 

.  154f. 

I  Corinthians — 

xv.  3 . 

.  90 

xv.  3f . 

.  39 

xv.  3-7  . 

.  26  f. 

Galatians — 

i.  1  . 

.  96 

i.  8  . 

.  22 

ii.  9 . 

.  83 

ii.  20 . 

.  .  .46,  139,  145f. 

v.  6  . 

.  146 

v.  13-vi.  18  . . 

.  146f. 

v.  14 . 

.  146 

Philippians — 

i.  18  . 

.  22 

ii.  5  . 

.  95 

Acts — 
i.  8  ... 
xvii.  28 


52f.  Hebrews — 

61  xii.  9  .  61 


189 


' 


. 


